What made Mr. Khan's DNC speech so powerful is that it presents a key contradiction in Trump's ideology, using an example above reproach. Trump's concept: "Muslim" does not/cannot equal "American patriot." Mr. Khizr Khan's counter-example: his American Muslim son's sacrifice to protect his American men. Mr. Khan strikes at the heart of this Trump concept. This is why Trump cannot ignore it, and because he mishandled his first response, he has only made things worse.

Note that Mr. Khan is a lawyer, so knows how to find the key points in an argument and undermine them. Also, among the Pashtun/Pathan people in Pakistan, 'Khan' is not a surname so much as a title, similar to 'prince' within a tribe. The Pashtun have been described as a 'warrior race,' but that can mean being prepared to lead from the front, as Capt. Humayun Khan demonstrated with his life. Mr. Khan is also courageously standing up to a genuine bully. Others have recalled Joe Welch's response to Sen. Joe McCarthy in 1954.