Why Obama Becomes Osama

GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney's no harm no foul denial that he intended any slander in mixing up Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama's name with terrorist bogeyman Osama bin Laden was tepid and perfunctory. So much so that it sounded less like a denial than a simple misstatement of a fact. But that's what it was intended to be. The reason Romney got off with a half-baked blow off of his verbal goof starts and ends with Obama.

There's his name. The similarity to Osama, America's universal symbol of evil and mass death and destruction has been just too juicy to pass up as the butt of jokes, ridicule, and sincere or calculated confusion. Two years ago a befuddled Senator Ted Kennedy stumbled and confused Obama with Osama. Kennedy had no political ax to grind with Obama. Both are moderate Democrats. Since Obama announced his candidacy, some off-beat bloggers have run rampant poking fun at the Obama-Osama name nexus. Then the fun and games with his name turned malicious. There was the flood of emails that fanned the rumor that Obama is a Muslim (he's not) and therefore suspect in the terror war, and insinuated that he's less than patriotic.

Any other time the Obama name tweak could be laughed off as just another silly, warped, cheap shot at a politician. But the fear of terrorism makes the Obama-Osama name mix-up anything but off color camp. Polls still show that terrorism ranks at or near the top of America's jitters. On the sixth anniversary this past September of the 9/11 terror attack, an AP poll found that an astounding nine out of ten Americans said they believe the U.S. will be attacked again by terrorists on American soil. Despite Bush's towering foreign and domestic bumbles and failures, and ocean bottom popularity ratings, polls show that a majority of Americans still approve of his response to the 9/11 attacks.

The terror scare and Bush's adroit milk of it was the single biggest thing that propelled him back to the White House. Romney and the GOP contenders know that, and in a campaign season when legions of Americans are fed up with GOP corruption and sex scandals, policy failures, and a failed and flawed war, and when the current bunch of GOP contenders barely stir a pulse among hard line evangelicals, the terrorism card looms as the biggest, maybe the only, ace in the hole for the GOP in 2008.

That makes Obama a tailor made fall guy to again blast the Democrats as soft on terrorism. Unfortunately, Obama gave them some ammunition for blasting. In a Democratic debate in July Obama loosely proclaimed that he wouldn't hesitate to reach out to America's favorite pariahs, Fidel Castro, Iran, and North Korea. That brought howls from conservatives, and even raised the eyebrows of Hillary Clinton and other top Democrats. That instantly transformed Obama into the presidential candidate even more suspect in waging the war against terrorism.

Obama tried mightily to do damage control, and shot from the lip again with a quip a week later that he'd launch preemptive strikes against terrorists wherever they were and that included search and destroy missions to ferret out Osama and Al-Qaeda. He added more bluster when he quipped that he'd put his own life on the line to stop another 9/11 attack. Obama's bring-on-em' Bush like saber rattle on terrorism, let alone a little rhetorical bravado on 9/11 won't make one iota difference to conservatives and legions of voters. He'll still be their perfect foil to whip saw the Democrats as losers on terrorism.

That was evident with the audience that Romney picked to make his Obama-Osama gaffe. He addressed the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce meeting, a group not likely to give Romney the boot for his slip. It's even less likely to have much sympathy for an Obama candidacy. Then there are the anti-Muslim tremors that shake millions of Americans. Romney flatly told the Chamber audience that Osama implored radicals and jihadists to further bloody the killing fields in Iraq with American lives.

In Romney's Osama name twist, it wasn't Osama that made the call it was Obama. In one crude stroke, Romney punched three political hot buttons--America's horror of Muslim initiated terror attacks, disdain for liberal and moderate Democrats, and Obama's soft-on-terrorism tag. Romney had it both ways. He made the obligatory denial of any insult to Obama while driving home the point that terrorism is still very much in play on the campaign political table, and that whenever and wherever he can, he'll play it. If that means Obama becomes Osama and vice versa than so be it.

One more note. Despite repeated requests to Romney from the press for clarification during his other stops campaign stops in South Carolina, he refused. As far as he was concerned, the case was closed on the issue. In other words, Obama is still Osama.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Latino Challenge to Black America: Towards a Conversation between African-Americans and Hispanics (Middle Passage Press). [e-mail]

Comments

[radicalcentrist44]

Ted Kennedy is a moderate democrat? You cannot be serious. I stopped reading the rest just based on that statement.

[JimR]

LOL

Yup, Ted is a real centrist, alright.

[Vernondelray]

The only time Teddy ever veered right, he drove off a bridge at Chappaquiddick.

[realitytrumpsbull]

NotMyPrez LOLOL Mit Rommel

Yeah, what's in a name, you got Busherer, you
got Darth Cheney, you got Billary, now Rommel,
Osama, I want someone to change their name
to Alfred E. Neuman and run for office as a
write-in..­.I don't care how bad they are,
I'd vote for em just for that...

[klondiker]

Romney is an lying, flip-flopping idiot. We all know that.

But, Obama ought to know better than to give a raging homophobe the stage to spew vile, hateful comments. Is that the kind of politics of hope he is talking about?

How many young people in America, who are struggling with the social taboo of being gay or lesbian will hear a voice from the Obama campaign saying, "God delivered me from homosexuality"

How many people need to demoninzed just so that Obama can pocket some black conservative votes?

Very disappointing indeed.

[SensibleAmerican]

You are one of the more enlightened souls on this Board Mr. Hutchinson! Also, his middle name is "Hussein"! I have often been attacked over here for addressing that but like it or not, that IS his name and a red flag to all the Islamophobics ...

[TurnThePageGA]

And you will continue to get slammed you FAKE!

OBAMA 08

[Vernondelray]

Also, his middle name is "Hussein"!

WTF difference does that make? Your name is SensibleAmerican, and everyone can see that is bullshit.

I'm not voting for Obama either, but he is head and shoulders above most of the other candidates.

[meese]

It sounds like Mr. Hutchinson is essentially saying that Sen. Obama has what's coming to him with respect to people calling him "Osama". Did you think he chose his name? Come on now.

Ultimately, using his name that way is a cynical ploy to get votes, and voters know it. It's likely that anyone influenced by Romney-style name calling would probably not be voting Democrat anyway.

[jazzman]

Oops, a slip. Please judge, strike that from the record!!(heh-heh)

[bethinCary]

It should not be ovelooked that this is not the first time Romney has done this...
As far as the issue of "national security" issue goes-I thought Obamas' answer was a very grown-up answer to a complex problem.
For Hil and the GOP to have "raised eyebrows" shows the status quo of an ill-fated ideology that locks such candidates into black-white-more war solutions which most of the nation (70%)is against. So why is Obama not supposed to say that we need diplomacy? It's what the public has already gotten on board with-no matter how much the msm tries to spin otherwise.
Attaching conditions is not conducive to solving problems diplomatically either.It'­s a closed-mind approach.
I'm glad we finally ahve a grownup in the room to take control of the lunacy of the masses. This country can not afford to keep spinning its' wheels in the mud of the "W"sticker-toting, warmongering crowd.
We need a grownup who can show us the way out of this mess-and I have the faith that Obama is that grownup who can stay above divisive politics and solve it the best way he can by doing what he has a proven track record of-diplomacy and leading at the same time..

[IntrepidReader]

Being from Chicago, maybe he could have billed himself as Barry O'Bama, a good Irish lad from Bridgeport, and avoided a lot of problems.

What. Haven't you ever heard of Black Irish? :)

[MsLiz]

"Maybe he could have billed himself as Barry O'Bama"

Roll Tide!

[Dandy12]

Romney is such an empty non-entity that no one probably identifies with him (or very few). Romney says very little new about very little. When he does say something for example about more military spending coupled with a high standard of living, who is he kidding? Oh, I forgot, he's so rich that he has no idea of middle class existence. Doesn't he realize that 95% of Americans have wages/salaries that have not kept pace with inflation? On the political stage, he needs all the attention that he can get. A name mixup with Obama and Osama, was it an act of deperation perhaps? He probaly wishes that he had one-tenth of what Obama's got going for him.

[RaisingPaine]

"That brought howls from conservatives, and even raised the eyebrows of Hillary Clinton"
That kind of honesty is SUPPOSED to raise eyebrows, and conservatives would howl at anything that deviates from their CW, the same CW that led us to where we are today.
You either want change or you don't. It's refreshing to have a politician saying without qualification he has the courage to take a different course.
"Obama tried mightily to do damage control...­"
The only post-debate qualification Obama made is his notion of "without pre-conditions" didn't imply there would be no pre-meeting diplomatic spadework, as was suggested by Senator Clinton. Obama, correctly so, gathered that Americans understood that. "Without pre-conditions" meant there would be no policy-change requirements on the part of adversaries before face-to-face talks -- again the current CW.
Why does the conservative press insist on rying to qualify Obama's statements as a "gaffe" when he himself has restated them on several occasions? They are not "gaffes" simply because it strikes the media as odd a candidate would say such a thing.
What I find strange is that when a candidate is bold enough to take an anti-CW stand, there is a rush to dismiss the statements (and the seriousness of the candidate, by extension) with superficial rhetoric and no supporting analysis as to why such changes are such a bad idea.
"...and shot from the lip again with a quip a week later that he'd launch preemptive strikes against terrorists wherever they were and that included search and destroy missions to ferret out Osama and Al-Qaeda."
Shot from the lip? It was his major foreign policy address! As far as search-and-destroy missions targeting Osama and Al-Qaeda, that's pretty much what the American people have been asking for, not misadventures in Iraq that have placed us on the wrong battlefield for four years, at an expense projected to run to a trillion dollars, and cost the lives of over 3,000 American servicemen and women along with countless Iraqi civilians.
RP

[JimR]

Each year, Ronald Reagan sat face-to-face with the leader of the Soviet Union, which he described as "the evil empire." He wasn't exactly a liberal pacifist.

[Nic]

It wasn't a misstatement. Willard deliberately attempted to plant doubt. Sounds like he's running scared. Or,could it be his mormon self just doesn't care? Afterall,Obama isn't "white and exceedingly fair and delightsome". Check out their Book of Mormon-2Nephi 5. Cult. Their founder had "revelations" by looking into a hat filled with rocks.

[NotMyPrez]

I think Obama should start calling Mitt, Rommel....

[jones]

How about Rommsfeld?

[CriminallySane]

Anyone who believes that Willard (his given name) Romney made that "slip" accidentally needs the sort of help they will not get reading blogs.

[Bateman]

Ted Kennedy had an Obama-Osama slip himself.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4354-2005Jan12?language=printer

When two similar-sounding names that were unfamiliar until several years ago appear in the news frequently, there are bound to be unintentional verbal substitutions.

And for Nic, who commented above, would you say the same about Senator Harry Reid, who is also a Mormon? I am an atheist who is sick of the gratuitous and unfair Mormon-bashing.

Let's give the American people some more credit. Most don't care what the senator's name is. I don't agree with Barack Obama on many political issues, but I believe that he is a patriotic and honorable American.

[Vernondelray]

First, Ted would mispronounce his own name (hiccup). Romney's "gaffe" was intentional, the fact that he repeated the gaffe leads me to believe so.

Second, I was raised in the Mormon religion, and while there are many fine people practicing the religion, I am not among them, having renounced that particular faith long ago, although I still worship Christ. Due to those early experiences, however, I reserve the right to bash the religion on its tenets alone and there is nothing gratuitous about it, it gives me no pleasure. And I would criticize Reid (I didn't know he's a mormon) because he has been an inept Senate leader. Perhaps I now know why.

I hope that you are correct that we should give the American public more credit, but there are going to be some out there that dismiss Obama just because of the name, America still has her share of idiots. As for Obama being honorable, I was firmly convinced of that, but having just read MichaelJames' post above asserting that Obama has Zbigniew Brzinski in his camp, I will have to look a lot harder at Obama. Brzinski is a scumbag of the first order.