What’s in a (Politician’s Middle) Name?
Should Barack Obama’s full name — Barack Hussein Obama — be used by people other than himself during the 2008 campaign? For months, a number of Obama’s detractors have been using it, but it wasn’t until syndicated radio talk show host Bill Cunningham used it several times when introducing Senator John McCain at a campaign event in Cincinnati that the proverbial you-know-what hit the fan. Cunningham also alluded to several major television news networks as being in the Clintons’ pockets. Upon making his entrance, McCain verbally spanked Cunningham for his remarks:
“Whatever suggestion that was made that was any way disparaging to the integrity, character, honesty of either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton was wrong,” he said. “I condemn it, and if I have any responsibility, I will take the responsibility, and I apologize for it.”
Is it really tasteless to use Obama’s name in full? I’ve seen varied responses to this question all over the blogosphere. Many liberals believe that those who use Obama’s middle name when referring to him are in fact using a racist and/or ethnic slur. And some conservatives, like McCain, believe using his middle name is a classless endeavor that will ultimately backfire.
Then there are those, like John Hawkins of Right Wing News, who like to use Obama’s full moniker “every so often solely because liberals freak out about it so much.”
No, Obama’s not president yet — just a candidate — but using a president’s middle name is not unheard of. The following is just a partial list of past presidents who were often referred to by their full names: John Quincy Adams (to distinguish him from father John Adams), William Henry Harrison, William Howard Taft, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and William Jefferson Clinton. Of course, these middle names don’t have the same ring to them as one that was coincidentally shared by an evil, murderous tyrant who is (fortunately) no longer with us. But it is part of Obama’s given name, not a made-up addition.
What also isn’t new is making fun of politicians’ names in a derogatory fashion. Here are just a few recent examples: John McLame, John François Kerry, Shrillary Rotten Clinton, Billy Jeff Clinton, Arlen Sphincter, Chris Dudd, Bob Dull, and Nancy Pelousy. I’m sure there are plenty more that can be added to the list. When you enter public life, it’s simply one of the crosses you have to bear, along with unflattering photos and cartoons making the rounds.
Interestingly, Obama went by the nickname Barry when he was in high school. Some question why he would have “Anglicized” his name, but it’s not really all that hard to figure out. Unusual names stick out, and since most kids want to do what they can to “fit in,” I imagine that’s why he did so.
When I was in elementary school, there was a girl in my grade whose name was Huong. Huong was one of the many children from Vietnam adopted by American families in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Unfortunately for her, that was the time when a particular Saturday morning cartoon was popular and kids, being who they are, often taunted her by calling her Hong Kong Phooey. Eventually she legally changed her name to Pauline, putting an end to the name-calling. I wonder what she’s doing today — and if she ever changed her name back.
No, it wasn’t nice. But then, life isn’t always a bowl of cherries.
Here’s a question for you: How many liberals who decry the use of Obama’s middle name in political discourse have a problem with the popularity amongst their fellow travelers of referring to President Bush as Hitler? Obama’s middle name is an accident of fate — but referring to President Bush as a murderous dictator who thought nothing of killing Jews, political dissidents, and the mentally and physically handicapped in his quest for world power is not.
I do take opposition to the argument that using Obama’s middle name, Hussein, is racist, since Muslims — and we know that’s what’s being referred to here — do not comprise a race, just as Christians do not comprise a race. Yet if one is so inclined to use that argument, should we not refer to Obama by name at all? It’s not like his name is James Hussein Smith. Should we simply call him B.O.? That’s not exactly complimentary either.
All’s fair in love, war, and politics. While it would be nice if we could focus strictly on the issues, we know that it has never been that way and it never will be. Human nature simply won’t allow for it. Sarcasm, satire, and biting humor are all part of the political game. Obama himself must surely know that and accept it — otherwise, why would he have gotten into the race at all? Politicians, even the best of them, all have unusually large egos, and that is likely what gets them through the onslaught of insults with their self-esteem intact.
In the end, the use of political caricatures — verbal, pictorial, and otherwise — is deeply ingrained in the American consciousness. Sometimes the caricatures do damage; other times they do not. Politicians are supposed to be big boys and girls who can take the heat. If they can’t, they have no business being in the kitchen.
Those who want to refer to Barack Hussein Obama have every right to, just as those who object have every right to voice their objections, thanks to our First Amendment. It’s all part of the great American experiment that continues to unfold each and every day.
Pam Meister is the editor of FamilySecurityMatters.org (the opinions she expresses here are her own), and her work has also been featured on American Thinker.
Barack Mohammad Obama. Barack Jong Il Obama. Barack Stalin Obama. Barack Sambo Obama. They’re all pretty ugly.
If he were a white man, and had a middle name like Stalin, or Hitler, or Mussolini, would it be okay then? Would the party even let someone run in that name?
As a conservative, I’m a bit abashed that we have nothing better than this tactic. If this is all we can muster against Obama, then we deserve to lose.
It’s not that his middle name is so muslim-sounding its the fact that HIS supporters are so ashamed of it they think we should not have the audacity to use it . If he stood up and gave us a proud defense of the name he might earn some respect, rather than expecting it to be GIVEN to him. Another annoying liberal habit.
It’s a lame political tactic. There are plenty of *issues* to work against Barack Obama. Perhaps we should look at using them and leave the name calling back in the 4th grade.
Perhaps the closest comparison for using Obama’s middle name is Tom Harkin’s repeated use of Bush 41′s middle names during the 1992 campaign. He referred to Bush as “George Herbert Walker Bush” so that the patrician sounding name would hit the right class warfare notes.
I didn’t see or hear of anyone getting upset when the liberals dubbed the President “dubya” and used it repeatedly to try to bash Bush.
What about the case, when prime minister of certain country have FIRST name “Donald”? (like Donald the Duck)
Of course when more previous PM, whose surname sounded like “duck” in my language, was in charge, there was constant flow of jokes and caricatures about this fact made by MSM.
Of course now MSMs are not making fun of contemporary PM, because he is more sympathic for them.
I agree: the tacitic of lampooning the names and surnames of political opponents is simply lame and immature. Don’t do that, ok?
“Is it really tasteless or racist to use Barack Hussein Obama’s name in full?”
Yes – tasteless. Don’t be a d*ck.
The offense one takes is the same one should take–liberal or conservative– when somebody uses the word “Jew” as a pejorative for a Jew. A person may be literally Jewish, but it’s dishonest and disgraceful to gloss over the fact that in each case a sigifier of ethnicity is singled out and deliberately used as a slur. It’s unquestionably repulsive when anyone compares Bush to Hitler. But the things that distinguish us ethnically or religiously, even if technically undistorted, can contextually be insulting and are sometimes intended to be.
During a disagreement I recently had with a friend of a different ethnic and religious orientation from my own, I was referred to as a ‘Protestant.’ My supposed ‘Protestantism’ has been as diluted by modernity and multiculturalism as has Barack Obama’s name. I do not subscribe to any tenet of belief that might be called ‘Protestant,’ though if somebody asked me what culture my background forced me to claim, a childhood in Bretheren and Baptist church life would delineate me as ostensibly Protestant. However, I was no fool to detect that my background was being contextualized so that it might cast a bad light on my ideas. The clear implication is that these ethno-cultural labels carry with them some essential negative moral quality and therefore merely saying them triggers the connection–a connection that can only be made in the minds of those who make such assumptions. Functioning as it does on this unspoken presumption that an ethnicity or culture could be essentially evil or flawed, it appeals to the least evolved intellectual habits of our species–habits which good people of both liberal and conservative persuasion have been nobly trying to stamp out for the last few centuries.
Why is it tasteless? We use Hillary’s and, as others note, we use anyone’s when necessary. If his middle name were not Hussein, we’d still use it. Point is though, he has SO many negative qualities, that this just adds a cherry to the most ridiculous candidate in American history. ONLY in America could a left wing novice with NO leadership experience even make it this far in an election for president. If and when he loses, his race or questionable Muslim background will not be his downfall; it will be his horrid politics, cleuless foreign policy, empty message, racist wife, etc.
From now, I’m calling Barry O:
“Barack Orenthal-James Obama.”
I think it is a mistake for him to make an issue out of the use of his name. The rest of his name is bad enough. If he can get over that, he can get over Hussein.
He has lost the racist vote already. But if he acts as though the use of his name is a racist slur, people will wonder what else he is hiding.
‘the liberals dubbed the President “dubya”‘
No, “the liberals” did not dub him “Dubya.” His family did. They started calling him “Dubya” to distinguish him from his father, who of course has the same first and last names.
Besides, I fail to see what’s so derogatory about “Dubya.”
Mishu is right. It is a lame, and childish political tactic. It is the sort of thing one expects from Fox News or Talk Radio, but not from an intelligent adult.
Lets come right out and admit what is going on here… it is a childish attempt to establish a link between Obama and Islamic Terrorisim totally because he has an Islamic middle name. By this same “logic” Omar Bradely was a deep cover agent for the PLO. Lord alone knows what the “Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine” have been plotting in thier secret meetings, those alleged “Children’s Hospitals” they run, and that “Circus” they run! Why that “Shrine Circus” has been known to travel the country visiting cities with ports, military bases, and potential terrorist targets!! (How many times was the Shrine Circus in New York before 9-11?? If they wern’t in New York, on that day, was it because they were WARNED?? What did the Elephant know and when did he know it???)
It is such a transparent attempt at a slur it only serves to make the person doing it look childish and stupid. (“He has an Arabic middle name!! He MUST be a terrorist!!”)
In fact nothing causes someone to loose credibility with me faster than using Obama’s middle name.
(And no, just because other people in the blogosphere act childish and stupid does not justify intelligent conservatives doing so… didn’t your Mother ever give you the talk about “If everyone else was jumping off a bridge…”?)
You want to go after Obama? GREAT examine his policies and find fault with them… shouldn’t be hard. You want to examine what he believes, (and from what I understand his Church has some rather unusual elements to it) go for it. You want to take him on for his remarks about the Sermon on the Mount and “an obscure passage in Romans” regarding Gay marriage, more power to you. All of those things will take work and thought, of course, but intelligent argument does that.
The emphasis on Hussein is foolish. I prefer to highlight Obama’s abandonment of Barry. It was only during his adult years when he started to prefer being called Barack. This man is not a Muslim! He is merely another pseudoeducated Harvard University graduate. “Barry” Obama is his mother’s son. The father was a relatively minor influence in his life. Obama learned to perceive the United States as something of an imperialist power crapping on the citizens of the Third World.
Do we honestly want someone for President who is so insecure about his own name that he can’t abide hearing other people say it? I don’t give a flying fork if someone wants to say it; I may not, but if someone else wants to then God bless him.
How many times have you heard the name Hillary Rodham Clinton. Is it racist to use her middle name? No.
Get prepared boys and girls, if Obama wins, every criticism of him will draw accusations of racism. It has been part of the Democratic playbook for decades. To this day the ignorant members of the far left call us racists if they lose an argument.
is his name not barack hussien obama, he needs to get used to it and quit crying, is not racist to go to a racist church http://www.tucc.org and http://www.obamatruth.org http://www.stop-obama.org check these sies out u will see the real barack hussien and michelle, go hillary
Yep.. his name is Barack Hussein Obama and he should note this proudly. As the writer points out.. these are the behaviors of 3rd graders. The difference between those giving a free pass to the rather immature(and over 50 yar old) and most people is that we learn NOT to gang up on people and tease them sometime before we turn 10 years old or we become conservatives. Language is not just about definition but also about tone and nuance. And if the writer claims not to know anything about this let’s just hear one of her children say something in an insolent manner and suddenly she’ll become quite expert at interpreting these signals and if one her kids used the same arguments against her that are supposed to suffice in this case she’d send them to bed with hides tanned!
Just as Dan Quayle used a badly pronounced Maarrrreeeeeyooo KoooOMO to make issue with Mario Cuomo’s italian name so too do conservatives hostile to Barack’s non anglo heritage. And to claim that this reference is MERELY anti-Islamic and not anti-black is more know nothingism. There are muslims in every race and stripe but conservatives are not going to ever come straight out and call Barack the “N”word. They’re going to merely point out that Barack is “different” or “foreign” and let the minds under their spell fill in the rest. It’s too bad.. it’s silly.. it’s immature.. but whenever the right wing asks “gee why do da blacks always vote overwhelmingly with the Dems.. after all didn’t we invent the flat tax and charter schools??” THIS is why. The belief that the only “normal” names are English Anglo-Saxon and the thinly veiled contempt for any other race or culture truly disgusts those of us who are not white and this laughing behind your hand “hey it’s a tuff world get over it” crap is fortunately going the way of the generations as the kids of the next generation are putting a lot of this behind them. I’m glad that Barack no longer feels the need to call himself “Barry” and he damned sure shouldn’t be ashamed of his middle name “Hussein” anymore than Omar Bradley should have been ashamed of the name Omar! We’re going to see a full fledged flowering of subtly disseminated white racist thought in this campaign and we might as well make ready for it now. We who are foreigners in our own homeland need to stand up and proudly claim our names, our ideas, and our freedom in the face of the cleverly argued know nothingness of the right wing blogosphere.
“What’s in a politician’s middle name?” What his/her parents decided to name him/her. What can anyone do about it?
Nicknames or name changes: both are perfectly acceptable. It’s that person’s choice.
Now, having said that and going completely anecdotal, I know of a few people who get all “creepy” whenever they see the middle name “Hussein” in Barack Obama. I don’t. That’s how he ID’s himself: that’s his choice.
You really want a chill down your spine, though? A few months ago, my husband and I met with a newcomer to my husband’s company and gave him a tour of the town. The man was from a Middle Eastern country, I don’t remember which one. His wife just had a baby boy, and he loved to play with our baby girl during the day trip. Out of the blue, I asked what his baby boy’s name was. His answer: “Jihad.”
Did your blood freeze? Ours, too.
Jebediah: English is not the only language in the world, but it is the language here. You can demand tolerance for your accent or you can hope your children speak unaccented English. If they speak unaccented English, they have not betrayed their heritage; they have accepted America as their heritage. I know Barack is not a Moslem, but I wonder why a Christian would name their child after a 6th century Islamic martyr. I guess they were trying to give their child a sense of his Kenyan identity, and what’s wrong with that? Well, he’s an American–shouldn’t they be trying to meet us halfway. And ponder the Kenyan identity: his father was a Luo. The Kikiyus see no harm in murdering Luos who try to participate in the electoral process. That is Kenya. White rascists have done more to overcome their prejudices than the tribal bigots of Kenya. I am glad that my parents rid themselves of the tribal hatreds of their fatherland, and I am sorry that Barack’s parents did not attempt to do the same for him.
It is appropriate to highlight B. Hussein Obama’s middle name. He bases his ability to be commander in chief on being opposed to the Iraq AUMF vote that resumed the war that necessarily entailed from Saddam’s breach of the Gulf War cease fire treaty. That means he would not have unseated Saddam Hussein.
B. Hussein also claims his maical multi-cultiness will get the jihadi world to love us.
W is called his middle name just to mock him as a spoiled rich kid who inherited the post from his dad.
Man up Obie
I guess we should just consider ourselves lucky that his name was not Hussein Ali, in which case we wouldn’t be “allowed” to use his name at all.
This debate is one of the dumbest I have seen in a long time. His name is his name. Using it may, or may not, mean anything but it is his name.
Meanwhile, he himself, seems to have graduated from Barry to Barack, so I would just assume that his own use of Hussein is not too far away, anyway.
I just wonder why Dems are not as proud of his middle name as they are of his color – which has been one of his only selling points. Identity politics (the only kind the Dems know) always brings up these sorts of ridiculous “dilemmas”.
whats wrong with the name of hussein? its like late king hussein of jordan or the grandson of muslim prophet mohamed poAbah. or do we assume all husseins are muslim ?