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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mistermj who wrote (351)	12/15/2006 11:53:06 PM
From: mistermj	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 149317

Scrutiny of Obama starting with his name By MAUREEN DOWD Columnist WASHINGTON — If you call Barack Obama’s office to check the spelling of his middle name, the reply comes back: “Like the dictator.” In the first rush of our blind date with the young senator from Illinois, we are still discovering things that are going to take some getting used to. Like his middle name: Hussein. There were already a few top Democrats scoffing at the idea that a man whose surname sounded like a Middle East terrorist could get elected president. Now it turns out that his middle name sounds like a Middle East dictator. The middle name — a sacred Muslim name and a family name carried by Obama’s Muslim grandfather, a Kenyan farmer, and his father, a Kenyan goatherd — had been cited in a few places. But there hadn’t been much focus on the unfortunate coincidence of the senator from the city known as the Hog Butcher to the World having the same name as the Butcher of Baghdad until a Republican operative dropped the H-bomb on “Hardball” this week. Ed Rogers, a Bush 41 official, said he was underwhelmed with “Barack Hussein Obama,” dismissing him as “a blank canvas where people project their desires.” This set off indignation among liberal bloggers and in the Obama camp, where the middle name has not been hidden, but has not been mentioned much, either, even on the senator’s August odyssey to his paternal home in Africa. The hush-hush on Hussein is a bit odd given that Mr. Inclusive is presenting himself as the American dream in human form, a multiethnic quilt whose journey is his qualification for higher office. Obama aides thought Rogers was trying to stir up racial and religious biases. “It wasn’t a slip of the tongue, I know that,” said Robert Gibbs, the senator’s director of communications. “The 2006 election proved that people are far smarter than the spin and fearmongering. You can’t solve Iraq with a campaign about people’s middle names.” He said that when Obama was running for the Senate, there were conservative Web sites that crowned the Democrat’s picture with a turban and tried to make an issue of Obama and Osama sounding alike — just as GOP strategists shamefully linked Max Cleland with Osama in 2002 and claimed in 2004 and 2006 that a win for the Democrats counted as a win for the terrorists. Gibbs said some had suggested to Obama early in his pursuit of a Senate seat that he might want to go by his childhood nickname, Barry. The Republicans have expertise at tying Democrats to villains. Rogers’ bad-boy mentor, Lee Atwater, yoked Willie Horton to Michael Dukakis. Atwater and his successors also liked to present their side as being more American. Traveling on the campaign trail with Bush Senior in ’88, Loretta Lynn made fun of Dukakis’ ethnicity, noting, “Why, I can’t even pronounce his name.” And a Bush 43 campaign adviser trashed John Kerry for looking French. Rogers denies he was playing hardball when he lobbed “Hussein” on “Hardball.” “No, I wasn’t trying to say he is Saddam-like,” he laughed. “The context was, this guy’s a lightweight. Never have I seen so much swoon for so little biography. If he can make something out of this, it proves he’s very thin-skinned and he ain’t ready. Hillary will beat him like a rented mule.” That would be Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton to you, Ed.

To: mistermj who wrote (351)	12/16/2006 12:04:26 AM
From: American Spirit	Respond to of 149317

Beware. The Republicans are also hyping Obama. Sort of. Hyping and insulting him at the same time. If they really feared him they them would ONLY be insulting him, and making up smear campaign stories. But read between the lines. While the GOP does indeed have something to fear from Obama, they are calculating that a non-white or female Dem nominee (Hillary or Obama) offers them their best shot, and stops the one man they know can't beat, because he is so hard to smear, that is Al Gore, who most Americans would agree probably was the real winner in 2000. It would also stop Kerry, Biden, Bayh, Clark and Edwards, whom they fear in that order. Edwrds would be more terrifying to them if he fit the profile as commander in chief. But he does not. The GOP is strictly vote-counting here. And we should too. Who wins in the moderately-conservative pro-military swing districts of Ohio? Because it could come down to that again. And since Dems control the Ohio state house now the GOP knows they can't just cheat, they are actually going to have to attract more voters. McCain is popular in Ohio's swing districts. But a black or a woman? No. Those districts are very traditional. So the GOP decides, okay, let's put some money into hyping Obama and Hillary, then either way we can't lose. Or so they hope. They're not 100% sure, and neither are we, but they're willing to bet that the USA will continue to elect a white male to the White House until at least 2016. And chances are, they are right. If I were in charge of the Dem party, I would try to get Gore to run, and if he won't, I'd put a lot of effort into resusrrecting Kerry and supporting the other white guys plus Richardson but minus Kucinich. A lot of respect to all candidates though, we should never attack our own. We should honor and respect them all. But realistically, 75% chance it's going to be a white male president in 2008. Regardless of the fact we're getting closer to the time when we could elect a woman or minority. We could howver go with the unconventional VP. That might even be a plus.