When is “Hussein” not a Smear? When Obama says it’s not, of course.
By LisaB on June 3, 2009 at 9:42 AM in Current Affairs, Muslims & Arabs, Obama's Media Censorship
Jake Tapper reports today it is no longer a crime to say Obama’s middle name, nor to suggest he has some muslim background.
The candidate was even offended when referred to by his initials “BHO,” because he considered the use of his middle name, “Hussein,” an attempt to frighten voters.”
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In September 2008, candidate Obama told a Pennsylvania crowd. . . {Republicans are ] really saying is, ‘We’re going to try to scare people about Barack. So we’re going to say that, you know, maybe he’s got Muslim connections.’. . . Just making stuff up.”
Over at NYT Caucus blog a writer notes Obama’s statement in Germany that the US could be considered a Muslim country.
The president said the United States and other parts of the Western world “have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam.”
“And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world,” Mr. Obama said. “And so there’s got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples.”
Jihadwatch thinks that’s over the top, noting:
Here is a What-Is-Obama-Smoking? Alert:
Indonesia: 200 million Muslims. India: 156 million Muslims. Pakistan: 150 million Muslims.
United States: 2.3 million Muslims (according to the Pew Research Center).
2.3 million? More than the Republic of Macedonia but less than Mongolia. But whatever.
Now, BO is not a Muslim. He says he’s Christian, and, for what it’s worth, I believe that is the label he prefers.
This story aggravates me strictly because people were branded racist or moronic, or “just plain wrong” because they dared mention BO’s connection to Islam. But what was once unthinkable for Americans to talk about is now an important talking point to the Islamic world.
SusanUnPC also talked about this back in April and included a clip of BO equating people questioning his background with those talking about Bristol Palin’s womb
Obama and his minions were clearly concerned his middle name and history might prove too close to Islam for some Americans and chose to go on the offensive early in the primary. Remember all those pundits who piously said emphasizing “Hussein” was, if not racist, then nearly as wrong? So much so that during the campaign, Time asked why “Hussein” was “off-limits.”
Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.: that is the full name of the junior Senator from Illinois — neither a contrivance nor, at face value, a slur. But John McCain couldn’t apologize quickly enough after Bill Cunningham, a conservative talk radio host, warmed up a Cincinnati rally with a few loaded references to “Barack Hussein Obama.” Asked afterwards if it was appropriate to use the Senator’s middle name, McCain said, “No, it is not. Any comment that is disparaging of either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama is totally inappropriate.”
[Clearly, many people didn't get the memo when it came to Senator Clinton.]
The pundits were quick to applaud McCain’s fatwa against the use of Hussein, and broadcasters began trying to report on the controversy without actually saying the name too much, dancing around the offending word as if they were doing a segment on The Vagina Monologues. In both cases, the word comes off as not quite illicit, but certainly a little taboo.
NPR also discussed the “middle name problem” some time ago, but the tone from the start was that it was, basically, unacceptable to use it. They also said the “name-which-cannot-be-said” meme started with Karl Rove.
Using Barack Obama’s middle name, Hussein, sounds “like a rallying cry for bigots.”
No, that didn’t come from anyone in the Barack Obama camp. Nor did it come from any liberal pundit defending him. It actually came from someone many liberals consider akin to Darth Vader – Karl Rove.
But if the whole “name-which-cannot-be-said” meme started with Rove, then you’d think the way to answer it, if BO was as enlightened as some thought (light bringer, anyone?) would be open discussion. BO had attended a Christian church, after all, for 20 years.
OK, maybe drawing attention to his church attendance was a bigger problem. Can’t use THAT argument.
Slate did a sympathetic article back in Dec 06 about the whole “name game,” giving credibility to studies of the effect of middle names on politics. (Seriously.) It seems as if even grown-ups can’t resist riffiing on a rival’s middle name, when it’s a little bit silly – as many middle names are.
The research of Grant W. Smith, a professor of English at Eastern Washington University, who has studied how voters react to the sounds of candidates’ names, suggests that Obama’s name could hurt him with undecided voters, who, since they sometimes cast ballots on the basis of vague sentiments, may be influenced by a candidate’s unusual moniker.
(An aside here. A judge, running for chief justice of the NC supreme court, listed his name on the ballot as I. Beverly Lake. The thought at the time was he wanted to appear as a female to voters not familiar with him, so I’d say the “name game” cuts both ways. Oh, and he won.)
Slate also notes an early push-back against the use of “Hussein.”
Just days after Barack Obama mused about running for president, Republican strategist Ed Rogers winged the senator on Hardball. “Count me down as somebody who underestimates Barack Hussein Obama,” sneered Rogers, carefully enunciating Obama’s middle name—a family moniker passed down from his Kenyan father and grandfather.
Obama’s camp, which had not hidden their man’s middle name or bragged about it, cried foul. “It wasn’t a slip of the tongue, I know that,” Obama’s communications director, Robert Gibbs, told Maureen Dowd. “You can’t solve Iraq with a campaign about people’s middle names.”
Obama’s team advanced a moral argument, saying his name and background could not be used to question him, in fact that it was wrong to do so at all. And the MSM bought big.
But it was a political wrong rather than a moral one. POLITICALLY Obama could not stand for people to discuss or mention his connections to Islam, tenuous though they were. So, the machine set to scapegoating anyone who tried with a moral wrong. Using “Hussein” became racist.
Until it wasn’t. Now Obama touts those connections. Now that the politics of the thing has changed, it’s OK to remind Americans (via foreign speeches, natch) about Obama’s time in Indonesia and his name-that-shall-not-be-said. No more moral hazard? Don’t bet on it. It’ll be OK for Europe to talk about it; OK for the Islamic countries to talk about. In fact, the only people not allowed to talk about it are us. Well, just those of us not making up the Muslim country of America.
And when did political wrongs turn into moral ones anyway? And why didn’t calling Sarah Palin a c–t ever rise to the level of moral wrong? Nah, that was just hard-balled politics, wasn’t it?
by Ronald Scott
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