The Untrustworthy Arab
Michael Young | October 11, 2008, 8:17am
The novelist Khaled Hosseini, an American of Afghan origin, has written a commentary for the Washington Post condemning the reaction of the Republican candidates when responding to those who use Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein, as a term of abuse. He observes:
Never mind that such jeers are deeply offensive to millions of peaceful, law-abiding Muslim Americans who must bear the unveiled charge, made by some supporters of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin, that Obama's middle name makes him someone to distrust - and, judging by some of the crowd reactions at these rallies, someone to persecute or even kill. As a secular Muslim, I too was offended. Obama's middle name differs from my last name by only two vowels. Does the McCain-Palin campaign view me as a pariah too? Do McCain and Palin think there's something wrong with my name?
But never mind any of that.
The real affront is the lack of firm response from either McCain or Palin. Neither has had the moral courage, when taking the stage, to grasp the microphone, turn to the presenter and, right then and there, denounce the use of Obama's middle name as an insult. Instead, they have simply delivered their stump speeches, lacing into Obama as if nothing out-of-bounds had just happened.
The commentary came amid reports of mounting rage among Republican voters at the likely victory of the Democratic candidate in November, with Obama's alleged origins frequently being used against him. At a rally in Minnesota this week, for example, one woman told John McCain: "I don't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's an Arab." McCain responded by saying, "No ma'am, no ma'am. He's a decent family man... [a] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. That's what this campaign is all about."
Hossein's point is valid. McCain was trying to be decent, but you would have expected him to answer in a million different ways than the way he did, instead of just focusing on Obama's personal qualities. He could have, first of all, corrected the woman's inaccuracy, the confusion of one fallacy (that Obama is an Arab) with another (that he is a Muslim), before adding: "So what?" Substitute the name of most other ethnic groups for the word "Arab", and the candidate would have been - and quite legitimately so - apoplectic with rage at the bigotry on display. But denouncing someone because he or she is an "Arab" or a "Muslim" all too often seems fair game in American popular political discourse, with little visible backlash.
And if it's not fair game, then it would be useful to see the country's prominent politicians affirm that with a bit more conviction.
jose | October 11, 2008, 9:01am | #
American VOTERS are mad as HELL at MSM Obama cronies! Like CNN & MSNBC! And is causing the outrage against Obama. MSM is no longer helping their candidate, because they are openly in the bag for Obama, voters are taking that extreme anger out on Obama, the risk you take. MSM, CNN have jeopardized the security of the American people by deliberating continuing to openly hide serious facts and associations of Obama. HOW DARE YOU jeopardize our great but troubled country? Yes Voters are getting extremely angry at Obama, he continues to lie and refuses to answer questions that EVERY person running for leader of the free world would have to answer. Obama keeps reaching back to Chicago political past for policy advisers, and pulling one despicable, vile, and even evil “rabbit” after another out of his hat. The list of Obama’s radical associations is long and it keeps getting longer. Some are now well-known, but many are not.
VOTERS-STAND UP FOR YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT LET A TABLIOD CABLE NEWS LIKE CNN and MSNBC decide OUR President!
DEMAND OBAMA ADDRESS THESE SERIOUS RADICAL TERRORIST CONNECTIONS! TODAY!
(Bloomberg) -- Nigerian Stock Exchange Chief Exec Ofc Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke being investigated holding a fund-raising event for U.S. presidential candidate Obama, Agence France-Press reported U.S. electoral laws forbid donations from foreigners to electoral campaigns. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ0cq4Nytu8
(World News)
23 years at TUCC with Jeremiah Wright and James Meeks. Racist sermons on You tube.
He chose the most radical church in the country; Obama chooses to immerse himself and his daughters in hard-core ideological radicalism. Never before has this country considered such a radical leftist for its chief executive.
Michael Pfleger and his hateful and race-hating ramblings, Obama met while carrying out his own radical social activism as community organizer at ACORN, (radical organization) now under Federal investigation for Voter fraud in helping Obama. No one believed he won the caucuses, now we know why. WASHINGTON: RNC filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against the Obama for an America campaign acceptance of foreign national and excessive contributions. The Obama campaign has failed to comply with federal campaign finance law in its fundraising.
Penny Pritzker, heads Obama National Finance Committee was president of Superior Bank - massively failed, she literally bought her way out of jail paying $460 MILLION fine; was the very epicenter of subprime loan scandal” that has come to eat this nation’s financial system alive.
Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson, Obama camp advisor and headed Obamas vice presidential selection committee, discovered he benefited from sweetheart loans from subprime king Countrywide and was fired.
Tony Rezko certainly and his federal indictments and financial dealing with Obamas of course and William Ayers, US terrorist bomber, Obama-co-lecturer, fellow board member, neighbor, and friend.
Terrorist William Ayers
Communist Frank Marshall Davis, obama mentor; Saul Alinsky and Gerald Kellman (Kellman’s Woods Fund is how Obama hooked up and began his long relationship with Ayers.
Chicago lawyer Mazen Asbahi, Obama camp national coord for Muslim affairs also stepped down after news about his stint on the fund’s board - which includes fundamentalist imam - prompting The Wall Street Journal inquiries about relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and his long personal relationship with Hamas Jamal.
Obama desperately needs voters to forget hes the son of a Muslim father who served an incredibly brutal and corrupt Kenyan government; to forget he attended a madrassa in Indonesia and practiced Islam; forget that he campaigned in Kenya on behalf of Raila Odinga, who relied upon chaos, corruption, and violence in his campaign; numerous associations with radical Muslims; forget the photographs of Obama in traditional Muslim clothes, hanging with Muslim radicals such as Mazen Asbahi and anti-Semite Rashid Khalidi.
The mainstream media has frankly put the security of our great country at risk with an Obama coronation media like CNN & MSNBC is the only way Obama managed to steal the Dem nom. It’s extremely concerning that so many Americans could care less about who their candidate really is?? Simply amazing and frankly scary.
www.atlah.org/broadcast/ndnr07-28-08.html
www.dontvoteobama.net
prolefeed | October 11, 2008, 11:24am | #
prolefeed's convinced me.
It would have been both easy and politically smart for Barack Obama to change his middle name to make him appear more acceptable to racial paranoids as he sought political office.
But he didn't. He didn't change who we was, he didn't turn his back on the name his mother gave him. I think that speaks well of the man.
I don't think you're exactly a undecided voter in a swing state that Obama needs to worry about losing, joe. Liberal Democrats in Massachusetts are totally a gimme for the Democratic nominee, unless you're about to go down in flames in an epic fail of a campaign. :o)
And, it is an accepted practice in many Native American tribes to change one's name at maturity to reflect one's true nature, rather than the name given at birth that may not be a great fit with who you turn out to be.
I don't think it's either admirable or condemnable to keep your birth name, or to change it. Keeping it is the default for most people. My point is that if Obama thought he might be running for president one day, he should have given serious consideration early on to changing his name. Perhaps he felt 'Hussein' was a net asset for running as a Democrat for office in Chicago and Illinois.
I'm not an Obama fanboy like you, joe. I suspect that Obama might have given this at least a little consideration, and may have decided that it was a slight advantage as a Democrat to have a memorable name for the political offices he was considering in the near future, and that he didn't really expect that it was a likely contingency that he would be the Democratic nominee for president.
That is, rather than being an admirable show of character, I suspect it is somewhat more likely that some cold-blooded political calculus and tactics were involved here. Or maybe just an oversight that came back to bite him in the arse a little bit.
FWIW, we had a candidate for Congress in Hawaii whose last name was Swindle. Seriously. The man ran for office and didn't change that name. And he did surprisingly well, too, for a Republican in Hawaii.
Go figgah.
