Michelle Obama: name Hussein is 'the fear bomb'
by Mark Silva
weblogs.chicagotribune.com
Michelle Obama, who often has decried "the fear bomb'' that opponents have used against her husband for his middle name -- Barack Hussein Obama -- said in Canton, Ohio, today that it is happening again and shows why it's so important that he wins election as president.
"They threw in the obvious, ultimate fear bomb," Obama said today of her husband's 2004 Senate race. "We're even hearing [that] now. … 'When all else fails, be afraid of his name, and what that could stand for, because it's different.'"
The senator's wife said that rivals use innuendo to play on fears. "Just as they're saying it now," she said.
But, she told about 200 supporters this morning at a restored theater in Canton, Obama won despite that "climate of negativity and doubt" in 2004. "We learned, number one, that when power is threatened by real change they will say anything to stop it," she said. "But we also learned that the American people can handle the truth."
What America needs, she added, is a "fundamentally different kind of leadership," one that challenges people to be different, and better to one another. And that, she said to critics who say it is not his time, cannot wait.
"Barack Obama will be the kind of leader we need right now, not in four years or eight years or 12 years," she said. "We can't wait to get this right. We need it to happen today." |
