Barack Hussein Obama. Kind of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? And here he is dressed as a Muslim in Africa, a photo that the Obama people is claiming is a racist taunt from the Clintons.
Meanwhile, John McCain, ever the gentleman, has apologized to Obama for remarks made by a supporter, radio talk-show host Bill Cunningham (WaPo story). What was so offensive? Here’s the gist, from the Post:
Cunningham, who is known locally for his fiery right-wing rhetoric on the radio, challenged the media to “stop taking sides and begin covering Barack Hussein Obama” as they do Republicans.He used Obama’s middle name two more times and referred to him as “a hack, Chicago-style Daley politician who’s picturing himself as change.” He said, “When he gets done with you, all you’re going to have in your pocket is change.”
Cunningham then mocked foreign policy statements of “Barack Hussein Obama,” calling him the “fraud from Chicago” and saying that if Obama were to be elected president he would meet with the leaders of enemy nations. He continued by saying the “world leaders who want to kill us” will be “singing ‘Kumbaya’ together around the table with Barack Obama.”
The use of quotation marks around Obama’s full name is telling. What it is telling us is that the mainstream media believes it to be an insult to use Obama’s middle name of Hussein.
First, the basics: Obama is not a Muslim; I don’t believe that Obama is a terrorist, or a supporter of terrorists. While a president Obama’s policies will invite more terrorist attacks, it won’t be because that’s what Obama would prefer.
Obama happens to have a middle name that is Arab and, for virtually all of its holders, Muslim. So what? The point is, that is his name. It can’t be slander, although it is, at the least, a bit snarky to use it, which is why I use it. Sort of like what was done to George Felix Allen during his failed senate re-election campaign in 2006.
If Obama does not like his middle name, he can change it legally. If he does like it, fine, he can do with his name as he wishes — it is his, after all. But his supporters have got to stop being so thin-skinned about its use if Obama continues to keep his middle name.
As for why McCain felt the need to apologize, that is merely because of who he is: a gentleman first. I wish he hadn’t, because I’m not at all sure that anything said by Cunningham was either untrue or very far afield from the reality of an Obama presidency.
