Stuck in the Middle With You

Earlier this week, Republican operative Ed Rogers talked about Barack Obama on Hardball. In case you haven't heard about it, Rogers took care to highlight Obama's middle name: Hussein. You can take a look at Crooks and Liars. At The Huffington Post, Taylor Marsh argues that Rogers is trying to imply that Obama is Muslim, but I think he's trying to associate the senator with something else altogether. It might be an easier connection to make if Obama's middle name were Saddam, but Rogers evokes the ex-Iraqi dictator either way.

Maureen Dowd weighs in on Saturday morning:

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. So with one moniker, he evokes both maniacal villains of the Bush administration. And to top it off, as Jennifer Senior noted in New York magazine, Barack rhymes with Iraq.

Republican wizards have whipped up nasty soufflés with far less tasty ingredients than that.

She goes on to point out that Hussein is Obama's grandfather's name, so he comes by it honestly.

Not that Obama's middle name has been a secret (though I didn't know it until this recent flap), but in the long run, it's better to get this publicized now to allow the public to get used to it. The Repubs will keep pointing it out, in the hope that we're too stupid to realize that Obama is not really Saddam Hussein. As this election has pointed out, we're not.

(Thanks to The Unknown Candidate for access to Dowd's column.)