Megan McArdle (April 03, 2008)

Nice apophasis, there.

Posted by rafinlay | April 3, 2008 10:59 AM

What about John McCain's birth name, "RocksteadfastMcPatriot"?

Posted by brooksfoe | April 3, 2008 11:02 AM

I've always found Fred Thompson's birth name to be manly and distinguished.

Posted by Freddie | April 3, 2008 11:06 AM

Sometime before Barack Obama's middle name slipped into the realm of the unmentionable, it was supposed to be a selling point of his candidacy. "Well, I think if you've got a guy named Barack Hussein Obama, that's a pretty good contrast to George W. Bush," Mr. Obama told PBS's Tavis Smiley on October 18, 2007. "If you believe that we've got to heal America and we've got to repair our standing in the world, then I think my supporters believe that I am the messenger who can deliver that message."

I always supsected BHO was an asshole

Posted by BillMax | April 3, 2008 11:17 AM

A counterexample comes straight out of the pages of this magazine, from Andrew Sullivan. To paraphrase: Trying to convince a prospective Islamist that America is the "Great Satan" is going to be more difficult when the president's name is Barack Hussein Obama.

Posted by Erik | April 3, 2008 11:26 AM

You don't know BO!

Kinda ironic unclean language by a guest-host on this blog isn't it? Wonder what Megan will say.

Posted by Keep it Clean | April 3, 2008 11:26 AM

So says Henke, the Christmas Poo.

But how does Willard or Freddie exploit ethnic or religious prejudices?

Posted by Lighten Up, Tight Ass | April 3, 2008 11:28 AM

Acutally Barak is a Jewish name...
so net effect on Islamists is probably not good.

Posted by toxic | April 3, 2008 11:38 AM

Would Romney rather be called Willard or Mittens? Or what about "The guy that's blowing all of Tagg's inheritance"?

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | April 3, 2008 11:43 AM

Doesn't McCain have a girly middle name, like Sidney? I once played soccer with a girl named Sidney. So I can see why McCain would denounce middle names. I suppose we should call people by the name they wish to be called. Usually when I get called by my full name, including my middle, it is because my mother is angry with me...

Posted by freddiemac | April 3, 2008 11:45 AM

Kinda ironic unclean language by a guest-host on this blog isn't it? Wonder what Megan will say.

Agreed, Megan makes it a point of telling her posters to keep the language clean as her family (including her grandmother) readers her blog. I would think that a guest blogger who was trusted with her site while she was away would want to respect those rules as well.

Posted by Thorley Winston | April 3, 2008 11:55 AM

"...The whole thing is shameless, undignified and a transparent attempt to exploit ethnic or religious prejudices.

Let's clear this up: other than the requirements of direct quotes, there are only two reasons for a person to use Barack Obama's full name...

* You are producing a legal record, which requires use of the full legal name.

You are an asshole."

I couldn't agree more. Its childish -- the type of degradation that occurs daily in gradeschool playgrounds.

Posted by Zig | April 3, 2008 11:57 AM

A valid reason to use Obama's middle name is to mock the extreme response to people using his name. Honestly, the reaction to people using "Hussein" has been a little over the top. After all, it IS his name. It's not like people are calling him Barack Hussein Osama.

Posted by Earnest Iconoclast | April 3, 2008 11:59 AM

The truth is an absolute defense for libel, but not for being an asshole.

Posted by Njorl | April 3, 2008 12:00 PM

I think we should all refer to BHO by the name "Barry", Barack went by for so long and it isn't all forign sounding like Barack.

Posted by David | April 3, 2008 12:07 PM

And the greater the outrage expressed, the wider is spread the awareness of what all the outrage is about. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Posted by rafinaly | April 3, 2008 12:10 PM

This whole thing makes me wonder: If that George Bush DUI lo those many years ago had resulted in the suspension of his license, would we be seeing lots of gleeful references to "George Walker Bush"?

Posted by Julian Sanchez | April 3, 2008 12:11 PM

England is a nation of shopkeepers.

The United States is a nation of assholes.

(You realize that all the a-bombs floating around will get these threads deleted as soon as Megan gets back...)

Posted by liberalrob | April 3, 2008 12:20 PM

One more exception:

When dealing with people with common first/last name combinations...

George Bush vs. George W. Bush
Johhn Adams vs. John Quincy Adams

Posted by Stephen W. Stanton | April 3, 2008 12:23 PM

I have to apologize for quoting John [ redacted ] Kennedy on another thread.

My bad.

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 3, 2008 12:39 PM

George Felix Allen could not be reached for comment.

Feel free to google the story, if you thought that Dems didn't play race games with middle names.

Anyway, why does he have what is generally a muslim moniker as a middle name, despite the fact that he attends a Christian church (granted that the preachers are fairly indistinguishable from some deranged mullahs, but wahtevs) but is most likely really just another socilist in thrall to the almighty state?

Posted by holdfast | April 3, 2008 12:51 PM

About time someone said that.

Earnest@11:59 finds it amusing that people get annoyed, and it's nice to know that he can get such easy amusement off of exploiting xenophobia. If you called him n*****, now that would be really amusing, no? The response to it that is? (Cause you are all about observing responses and quite removed from the actual nonsense rolling off your tongue).

There is actually no valid reason to use Obama's middle name during discussions on the policies of the different candidates. It's juvenile. And people become animated because usually they are trying to talk about real issues when someone pulls a "Hussein" and carries the conversation down to a level of stupidity.

Also, just knew there would be somebody--again, reversion to kindergarten-- who would say, "Well how come he can say "a**whole" and I can't. How come my friends can pull a soda out of my fridge and you can't? Hmmm.

As though such a mouth of pottery is the apex of blog comment expression.

Posted by Finn | April 3, 2008 1:06 PM

What ethnic or religious prejudice do you exploit by calling Mitt Romney by his middle name, Willard???

You made the case for Hussein, Jon. But why are you a bigoted asshole for saying Willard? Isn't that just a standard, albeit unusual and kind of funny-sounding, Anglo-American name?

Posted by Oscar | April 3, 2008 1:17 PM

..and if you call someone "macaca," you hit the trifecta:

-you are an a@@hole;
-you are a racist; and
-you are an ex-Senator.

Posted by Allen06 | April 3, 2008 1:17 PM

OK. Why, exactly, did his parents give him that name? Is Hussein some family name? Was it to honor some one?

This would, I suppose, show something about the people who raised him, if anyone cared.

Posted by JohnF | April 3, 2008 1:23 PM

But why are you a bigoted asshole for saying Willard? Isn't that just a standard, albeit unusual and kind of funny-sounding, Anglo-American name?

There are different levels of being an asshole, surely, but making a joke out of someone's name being "funny-sounding" is always an attempt to mark that person as the Other and as Not One of Us. Granted, most of us feel that it's worse to do that to someone because of a name sounding black or Muslim- than because of, say, being insufficiently masculine, sounding French (GHWB and calling Pete du Pont by his birth name "Pierre"), or sounding too upper class or hokey.

The basic idea is, however, the same. "This person is an Outsider." A lot of politics is that, though. (George Allen was doing the same thing to the person he called a name even without calling him a name, anyway.)

Plenty of other examples. It's easy to find articles in Louisiana noting how the Louisiana Democratic Party liked to use "Piyush" as much as possible when discussing Bobby Jindal.

Posted by John Thacker | April 3, 2008 1:29 PM

Billmax and others are correct that BHO thought the use of his middle name would be an asset to his efforts to position himself as the post-racial candidate. Well, now that he's getting cut with the same blade, we're the a**holes for using it against him? I don't buy it.

Posted by johnm | April 3, 2008 1:30 PM

OK. Why, exactly, did his parents give him that name? Is Hussein some family name? Was it to honor some one?

Yes. It was his Kenyan grandfather's first name.

Posted by SeanH | April 3, 2008 1:38 PM

And when you call Shekar Ramanuja Sidarth "macaca," you're not being clever. You are being a racist cracker asshole.

And the electorate rejects your racist cracker ass.

Posted by Felix the Shat | April 3, 2008 1:39 PM

George Felix Allen could not be reached for comment.

When Jim Webb apologizes to George Allen for Webb's campaign's use of Allen's middle name "Felix", then we can talk about not using "Hussein".

Until then - no, not gonna happen. Henke can call people "*ssholes" all he wants, but, sorry, the precedent's been set. Middle names are fair game.

Posted by Al | April 3, 2008 1:46 PM

Can I still refer to Senator McCain as "Panama Jack?"

Posted by Andy | April 3, 2008 1:55 PM

Al,

Webb used Allen's silly-sounding middle name to try and associate Allen and silliness in voters' minds. Schlussel and her ilk use Obama's Muslim-sounding name to try and associate Obama with voters' fears of Islmamic terror. I see your point, but I think there's a very substantial difference in the level of jerkiness.

Posted by SeanH | April 3, 2008 2:02 PM

In the 1988 campaign, how many times did Michael S. Dukakis refer to "J. Danforth Quayle"? Did that make Dukakis an asshole? Or was he an asshole already?

Posted by Peter K. | April 3, 2008 2:19 PM

SeanH:

My recollection was that Webb and others used Allen's Jewish sounding middle name to try and associate him with Judaism.

I will leave it to others to argue if antisemitism is better or worse that anti-islamicism, but both seem to have an air of assholish-ness about them to me.

Posted by SG | April 3, 2008 2:21 PM

SG,

I didn't follow that campaign closely and I didn't catch that angle. If that's the case then shame on Webb.

Posted by SeanH | April 3, 2008 2:48 PM

Can we just agree to call him Barack Cougar Obama?

Posted by BillMax | April 3, 2008 3:00 PM

Rodham.

Rodham Rodham Rodham!

So there!

Posted by Shelby | April 3, 2008 3:12 PM

'Felix' is Jewish sounding? Since when? It's as latinate as they come.

Posted by Matt B | April 3, 2008 3:18 PM

Felix is of Latin origin, and means fortunate.

Which Allen the cracker was not. And which Al the cracker is not.

Of course, the racist Allen campaign would try any sleazy trick to win.

Posted by Felix the Shat | April 3, 2008 3:42 PM

It seems hard to argue that calling Romney "Willard Mitt" highlights the oddity of his name. Neither the first nor the middle name is common. But run both names through Baby Name Wizard (http://www.babynamewizard.com).

Willard was once the 83rd most common boy's name (in the 1910s), given to over a thousand babies after every million born. Only in 2003 did it fall out of the top 1000 names.

But Mitt has never been any of the top 1000 names in any decade (the popularity of Mittie, a girl's name, declined into non-existence by 1945).

Really, by comparison, calling Romney "Willard" makes him sound more like the rest of us, not less (or, more like our grandfathers, rather than not at all like our grandfathers).

Posted by ALB | April 3, 2008 3:54 PM

To paraphrase Coolidge, there are a lot of them in the country. If it weren't for them, I might not have been musing on 'Sydney' (from JSM). It's sort of like a local writer said. Be sure you're not dressed like trash if you go out and commit a crime. You won't look good on TV. Momma is revealing something, though perhaps not clearly, when she chooses a name.

Posted by Michael Haas Brophy | April 3, 2008 4:59 PM

The difference between calling Barry Obama by his middle name (or including it in his full name) and referring to him by a racial epithet is that the former is, um, his actual name.

I love how Liberals who frequently use obscenities, refer to Conservatives by all kinds of vicious labels, are all upset because someone called Barry Obama by his full name. Waah! Waah!

I've had to live with people making fun of my very unusual name for my whole life. And I'm not even running for office. If Barry is so sensitive, maybe he should do something else.

Why not complain about something that's actually relevant? How about him lying about McCain wantin to wage war in Iraq for 100 years? How about his devotion to racist spiritual advisors (now thare are two!)?

I don't really care what his middle name is, but I'll join him in condemning anyone who uses it if he'll immediately stop using ads that play on emotion or mislead people and start being extremely direct and honest in his speeches.

Posted by Earnest Iconoclast | April 3, 2008 5:05 PM

Okay, it is settled then. Barry O'bama it shall be--nothing scary or foreign-sounding about it.

Posted by David | April 3, 2008 5:22 PM

Sean,

thanks. That clears things up, and, I would think, ought to end the thing. Of course, it won't.

Posted by johnF | April 3, 2008 10:49 PM

Washington Post

"It has been reported," said [Reporter Peggy] Fox, that "your grandfather Felix, whom you were given your middle name for, was Jewish. Could you please tell us whether your forebears include Jews and, if so, at which point Jewish identity might have ended?"

The Felix issue all stems from this, yes is was blatant anti-semitism. Anything else is simply re-writing history. And yes, Peggy Fox is an asshole, and a racist.

Felix the Shat, from as far as I can tell is also both an asshole and a racist. "Cracker" is every bit a ethnocentric pejorative, and is only used as a racial slur. That he so freely slings it about does not speak well of him.

Posted by skullberg | April 3, 2008 11:46 PM

This post is another example of how Obamatons want to have everything both ways when it comes to Obama. He can call himself "Barack Hussein Obama" when trying to play up his alleged international appeal, but no one else can. Similarly, Obama and his surrogates can act touchy and make spurious accusations of racial insensitivity against Hillary for noting LBJ's role in passing the Civil Rights Act, but Obama reserves the authority to lecture America about how racist "typical whites" are.

Obama is in some ways the opposite of another political superstar with an exotic background, Bobby Jindal. Jindal assumed the name "Bobby" when he was young and has kept using it; Obama used "Barry" when he was young and switched to using the more foreign-sounding "Barack" when he went into politics. Jindal converted to America's largest denomination, Catholicism, as a teen; Obama converted to the most radical church he could find in his twenties. One man embraced America, the other embraced and cultivated a radical version of blackness.

Posted by Fred | April 4, 2008 12:41 AM

I have a new one for him "Barak Vladimir Farakhan Josef Obama" - I think it fits his beliefs to a tee, really lets out the real Barry O.

So is Barak Hewbrew for wolf or lightning - I know it is one but I can't remember which?

Posted by Barak Vladimir Josef Obama | April 4, 2008 1:03 AM

A thoughtless and needlessly obscene post?
Open racism and anti-semitism in the comments?
Come Back soon MM!

Posted by sourcreamus | April 4, 2008 9:58 AM

I think that there’s an easy way to clear up the entire (non-)issue.

Let’s all agree to call Barack Obama by the same name he used when he was sworn into the United States Senate. Deal?

Posted by Thorley Winston | April 4, 2008 12:03 PM

It's quite clear that the Obama campaign wants to downplay any association between the candidate and Islam. It's also quite clear that Obama and his backers are quite comfortable with the double standard of BHO using his full name for his entire political career until he became a viable presidential candidate, at which point forward anyone that dares mention Obama's Arabic middle name must be pilloried as a racist.

If you go to the Obama site you can find sections of the site, graphics and memorabilia for specific special interest and ethnic groups, including Latinos, Irish, African Americans, Asians and others. They even sell Hebrew Obama '08 buttons. However, there are no Arab Americans for Obama materials on the web site, no Muslims for Obama icons, and certainly no Arabic Obama memorabilia.

Somehow I'm skeptical that this is just a coincidence.

If it's okay to have Hebrew Obama buttons, and Irish button with shamrocks, why not Arabic Obama merchandise with a crescent and star?

If it's okay for the Obama campaign to sell Hebrew campaign memorabilia, is it bigoted for someone else to sell materials that demonstrate the tremendous support Obama has in the Arab and Muslim communities?

Posted by Bozoer Rebbe | April 4, 2008 1:40 PM

It's quite clear that the Obama campaign wants to downplay any association between the candidate and Islam. It's also quite clear that Obama and his backers are quite comfortable with the double standard of BHO using his full name for his entire political career until he became a viable presidential candidate, at which point forward anyone that dares mention Obama's Arabic middle name must be pilloried as a racist.

If you go to the Obama site you can find sections of the site, graphics and memorabilia for specific special interest and ethnic groups, including Latinos, Irish, African Americans, Asians and others. They even sell Hebrew Obama '08 buttons. However, there are no Arab Americans for Obama materials on the web site, no Muslims for Obama icons, and certainly no Arabic Obama memorabilia.

Somehow I'm skeptical that this is just a coincidence.

If it's okay to have Hebrew Obama buttons, and Irish button with shamrocks, why not Arabic Obama merchandise with a crescent and star?

If it's okay for the Obama campaign to sell Hebrew campaign memorabilia, is it bigoted for someone else to sell materials that demonstrate the tremendous support Obama has in the Arab and Muslim communities?

Posted by Bozoer Rebbe | April 4, 2008 1:40 PM

Cracker refers to an ignorant racist, and is therefore is an earned description, not a racial slur.

You, skullf**k, are a cracker.

And what of someone who takes a Yiddish sounding nic, skullberg, and turns it into an obscene epithet?

Got a problem with Jews much?

Posted by Bozoer Rebbe | April 4, 2008 1:45 PM

Excuse me, but legally Barack's full name is . . .

Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.

Yet nobody ever uses the 'Jr.'

Posted by fit2post | April 4, 2008 3:44 PM

This comment has being deleted for being obscene, and also, not funny.

Posted by phartizan | April 4, 2008 4:01 PM