On Barack Obama's middle name

[pecunium]

Juan Cole sums it up.

Barack Obama's middle name is in honor of his grandfather, Hussein, a secular resident of Nairobi. Americans may think of Saddam Hussein when they hear the name, but that is like thinking of Stalin when you hear the name Joseph.

As someone pointed out elsewhere, "Should he be ashamed of being named for his grandaddy?"

Names can be powerful things, people put stock in them. Some people choose them; often to send a message (Benedict XVI) others are gifted with them to describe aspects of their nature (Babyface Nelson, Turdblossom).

To tar Obama with the associational aspects of that name (and who rememebers, anymore, King Hussein of Jordan?) is cheap. I wish I thought it wouldn't work, but I've already heard people talking about his, "Muslim ties" and the odor of, "Kennedy will answer to the Vatican" is buried in that idea; somehow being a Muslim (which he's not), makes one some sort of mindless automaton, who answers to some madmen holed up in the hills, or to ayatollahs in Tehran.

The smearing has started, in earnest.

Comments

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

I've had some luck with the confusion over Obama/rep. Keith Ellison by pointing this distinction out, and then saying, "But the people who first brought this up are just hoping that white people can't tell black people apart", which either gets a laugh (embarrassed or otherwise) or a denial, or a headshake. I've dealt with the Obama = Osama business by asking if they thought Macy's Department Store should have changed its name to avoid confusion with John Wayne Gacy, or (since I'm in Tennessee, and people are familiar with the place) if we should have renamed Grundy County to prevent confusion with Ted Bundy--after all, they rhyme, just like Obama rhymes with Osama! I am holding in reserve the one where I get a thoughtful look and say "You know, Alabama rhymes with Osama--I wonder..." but once it's football season I may turn it loose--it should get a good laugh in these parts.

Again, people get embarrassed, or they laugh, or shake their heads. I haven't had a good argument offered back yet.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

The smearing has started
Started?

Here in the UK, just about the only thing we know about Barack Obama is that Clinton has been making herself unpopular with a crass smear campaign against him for some weeks now. We generally liked Bill Clinton, but we hate negative campaigning from our own past experiences. This smearing has used up any popular capital the Clintons still had with us.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

No, this is in reference to the efforts by the Republicans--because the Clinton campaign wasn't doing enough. They aren't going to wait until the Democratic candidate is chosen--they're going after both Clinton and Obama these days.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I used to know a woman who married a Pakistani man with the last name "Hussein" in the early sixties, then divorced him a couple of years later, but because it was her kid's last name, she kept Hussein for years . . . until the first gulf war, when her car got egged at school where she was a teacher, and anti-Arab crap written on it. She reverted to her maiden (and very English) name then.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Recently, some Republican commentators have been saying it would be terrible -- practically a National Disaster -- if the Democratic nomination were to be a race up into the National Convention. I suppose what they mean is that they strongly desire to concentrate their attention on smearing just one candidate, rather than dividing their efforts among two or more. (Their efforts and their money, that is -- the breaking news that there's been some major fraud in the National Republican Campaign Committee [no audits in several years, and millions of dollars probably missing] suggests that they might have to skimp on their paid media propaganda.)