"Because I think it's funny." - Ann Coulter explaining why she uses Barack Obama's middle name (May 6, MSNBC Live)
Why are all you liberals so upset with using Barack Hussein Obama's middle name?
Isn't Barack Hussein Obama proud of it?
Franklin Delano Roosevelt dealt with it and he had polio. Are you saying that Barack Hussein Obama can't deal with something a guy stuck in a wheelchair had no problem with?
Thomas Alva Edison didn't care if people used his middle name. What's the matter? Is Barack Hussein Obama afraid people will think he couldn't invent the light bulb?
I could go on and on, but I don't have to because the talk radio Lords of Loud already do.
"Now, may I ask a simple question? Is that his name? It is. So why can't it be used?" - Rush Limbaugh on using Obama's middle name (Feb 26, Rush Limbaugh Radio Show) .
What a great question, Rush. Three actually. The same number of parts that legitimately make up Barack Hussein Obama's full name.
Yes, Barack Hussein Obama's middle name is Hussein. If you don't know it, just turn on your radio and listen to John McCain's little buddy, Cincinnati's Bill Cunningham. Or listen to most any right wing show on the dial.
Really, I'm not kidding. Barack Hussein Obama's middle name is Hussein. Hussein, just like the Hussein in Saddam Hussein, the guy who was so evil we needed to invade his country to get rid of him.
Hmm. Wait a minute. I wonder... Tell me his last name didn't have something to do with his killing and plundering, not to mention the torture chambers. Didja hear me?! Hussein tortured his own people in torture chambers. Saddam didn't kill, plunder and torture. There must be millions of Saddams. It was Saddam Hussein who did. Not Saddam Clinton or Saddam McCain or even Saddam Alva Edison. Yep, the killing, plundering and torture was done by the same guy with the same last name that is Barack Hussein Obama's middle name.
If you don't get the point then you probably don't listen to talk radio. Or you believe the explanation of the uber patriotic hosts who plead innocence when they use Barack Hussein Obama's middle name only because that is his name. Certainly they're not using it as a scare tactic to inflame their fan base. Are they?
Call me crazy, as in Steve "Crazy" Young", but I they know exactly what their doing and they're certainly not using it to be funny. Even if that's their excuse, funny leaves the building the first two or three hundred times you use it. What they're hoping is that using "Hussein" will scare their patriotic fans into not voting for Barack Hussein Obama. No great revelation there. Sophomoric maybe. But no one ever accused talk radio of complex thought. Problem is, if it works as well as they hope it does, how will it affect the fans who may be one stamp from going postal?
The Left may crucify me for this, but I believe most of talk radio's right wing fans are sane. Maybe even as many as 99.99% of them. But as Limbaugh and the boys are proud to promote, talk radio has tens of million fans who tune in daily. Some hosts have more than ten million alone. And if my math assumption is close, that means there could be 1,000 who are several miles off the reservation. Doesn't mean they'll pick up a gun, but maybe one - .1% of those 1,000 - would.
Some may call it free speech. But is it free speech to yell "Barack Hussein Obama" in a crowded theater when that theater may be crowded with panicked talk radio fans who feel that if Barack Hussein Obama becomes president that it will be exactly like having Saddam Hussein as president?
And when that one nutjob wakes up one morning, believing what talk radio is trying to impress upon him -- that this Hussein may be just as dangerous as that other one -- he just may lock and load to save America from potential killing, plundering and torture chambers.
Farfetched? Maybe, but those who are perpetuating this type of scare tactic just might want to consider the ramifications of a tactic that works far too well.
Funny, huh Ann?
Former talk radio host Steve Young is an award-winning television writer and author of Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (www.greatfailure.com). His L.A. Daily News oped column can found every Sunday at www.dailynews.com/columnists
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Ann's middle name is Richard.
Good Greif! Just raising the IDEA of assasination is irresponsible.....Mr. Young should have used a different title for his article............................................................................tm
You forgot the "Jr." part of his name...
I agree with everything you say except the reason why someone would make an assassination attempt.
I believe, unfortunately, the reason would be because of the color of his sin, a reason just as preposterous as for thinking Obama to be some Islamic Manchurian Candidate.
But racism is as american as apple pie.
There are still plenty of extreme people who would love the opportunity to start some type of racewar in America.
Years ago a group called The Order was going to pass out fake twenty dollar bills throughout the inner city black communities. The plan was that eventually the rash of arrests in the black community for a crime the people had unwittingly commited, would eventually lead to a tipping point. A point where the African American community would be forced to unite and rise up against this obvious miscarriage of justice.
This would hopefully lead to enough fear in the white population that there would begin the sparks of the racial war The Order desired.
The FBI stopped The Order just before the distribution phase. Thankfully, one of the members realized what they had become a part of and wanted to get out and stop them.
After that he has had to change names and locations multiple times, since he has had many revenge attempts on his life.
That was an unfortunate typo above, I meant to write color of his skin.
And no this is not some Freudian slip, I would appreciate it if that is taken as my word
Reading one unhinged foaming-at-the-mouth irrational Hillary-hating comment after another on this site has made me think that Bill Clinton has more to fear about his spouse's security than Michelle Obama does. Hillary supporters just do not spew the same near-violent hatred of her opposition that so many Obama supporters do.
Hillary and Bill do it For them
I don't see how your blog connects up with the words "If Barack Obama is Assassinated," except to underscore the phony comparison Team Obama is trying to make between their candidate and Martin Luther King.
Coulter is now working for Hillary Clinton and we should not forget that. She believes Clinton is just as hawkish as McCain so she and Limbaugh are going all out for Hillary who has yet to denounce or reject their support.
Tell us how you know that Coulter is "working for Hillary Clinton". You zip around from blog to blog, like a cockroach when the lights are turned on, posting lies that you cannot defend. Do you realize that 80 percent of your crazed posts contain the word "racist?"
Pot, meet Kettle. Kettle, this is Pot.
A brave and sound piece, Steve.
If there IS indeed some psycho out there planning so horrible a crime, then perhaps having the citizenry's consciousness risen to that possibility, helps to void that plan.
You have aided to foil any goals to that effect. A courageous and truly American thing to do. I believe in and will vote for Obama for President. I look forward to a sane leader making the needed repairs around here.
John F Kennedy lost in Ohio but won Wyoming to go on to win the Democratic nomination and of course the presidency in 1960. Obama needs a VP he can trust.
THE LATE KING HUSSEIN WAS A GREAT AND COMPASSIONATE HUMAN BEING. A FRIEND OF AMERICA AND ISRAEL. HE BROUGHT DIGNITY AND NOBILITY TO THE REGION AND THE WORLD. WHAT IS WRONG WITH OUR COUNTRY. WE NOW FIND PEOPLES SUR NAMES AND MIDDLE NAMES REASONS TO BE SUSPICIOUS. A YOUNG PROFESSIONAL COUPLE MOVED NEXT DOOR A FEW YEARS AGO WHOSE LAST NAME IS HUSSEIN. THEY ARE WONDERFUL NEIGHBORS AND ARE WELL RECEIVED. I CAN'T HELP BUT WONDER WHAT THEY MUST THINK WHEN PEOPLE GO OUT OF THEIR WAY TO MAKE FUN OF OBAMAS MIDDLE NAME. I'M 75 YEARS OLD . I LOVE MY COUNTRY AND WOULD NOT LIVE ANY WHERE ELSE BUT I HAVE TO SAY SOME THING UGLY IS HAPPENING IN OUR NATION. THERES A WHISPERING CAMPAIGN GOING ON THAT OBAMA MIGHT BE A MUSLIM. HOW PATHETIC. WE ARE NOW OFFICIALLY A NATION OF BIGOTS. CATHOLICS AND MORMONS IN THE EYES OF MANY ARE NOT TRUE CHRISTIANS. I'M CERTAIN MUSLIMS, BUDDISTS, HINDUS AND MOST JEWS ARE WILL EVER BE TRUSTED TO PROTECT OUR CONSTITUTION LIKE THE TORTURE BROTHERS BUSH-CHENEY.
Dear Charliettuna11,
Please--next time you post a message, make sure that your caps lock key is in the OFF position. You may have made some valid points in your post, but who can wade through all that SHOUTING??!
The use of Obama's middle name by Coultergeist, Limbaugh et. al. is obviously part of the Karl Rove-inspired plan to terrify the 25-to-30 percent of the populace who still think that Dubya is the greatest president ever. They wouldn't vote for a Democrat no matter what was going on, so I would say that should an attempt be made on Obama's life, Coultergeist, Limbaugh, Cunningham, etc. should be named as co-conspirators!
I agree with on that last statement. If something happens to either Democratic candidate they should be held accountable because all of these so called conservative talk show host are sure talking a bunch of garbage lately.
About bloody time, if you ask me.
Well said.
You have got to be kidding, Steve! No way on Earth are 99% of right-wing radio listeners sane. Anyone who listens to that crap for more than a minute without twisting the dial in disgust is either a researcher for HuffPo (God Bless'em for doing such a necessary, but repugnant job), stuck in a car with a ranting idiot, or just plain stupid. Too stupid, thank God, to plan an an assassination that has any chance of success.
I hate that it is so, but many Americans revel in their ignorance. Like the moron that shot a Sikh store owner in Colorado after 9/11. He was too stupid to know that Sikhs are Hindu, not Muslim. He was too stupid to realize that The only Muslims involved in the attack were already dead, or in another country by that date. Two families are without fathers for one senseless act; at least the killer's family is better off with that drooler in jail. Ah, ignorance is a powerful tool, and the venom-spwers on talk radio are adept at using it.
As for middle names, I guess it is okay to use them; Hussein is Obama's middle name, right? In this case, I have to agree with Rush Dimbulb Limbaugh, Ann TheMan Coulter, Sean Vanity Hannity, and Michael Nutcase Savage.
FYI - Sikhs are not Hindu, they practice Sikhism, which is a monotheistic religion relying on the teachings of Nanak. (Hinduism is polytheistic.) But your point was correct that the murderer made a tragic mistake.
I appreciate the correction. Glad somebody did the research that I should have.
Why this is so pernicious is the subconscious power of conflation. Ya'll may remember back in 2002 when every sentence uttered by the Administration, GOP Congressmen, and their lackeys said something like, "Since 9/11.....we should invade Iraq." or "the lessons of 9/11....we should invade Iraq."
They could get away with saying "We're not saying that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, we're just saying....." and it was cemented in Americans' minds that Iraq and Saddam Hussein DID have something to do with planning 9/11.
Now they're at it again, and since they can't say "Don't vote for Obama because he's black" (Ok, Rush Limbaugh can, but not everyone can get away with it) they'll change it to "Don't vote for Obama because he's Muslim/a terrorist."
This is dangerous and must be stopped because it is a DELIBERATE FALSEHOOD PARADED AS A HARMLESS JOKE. The people who are doing it either know exactly what they're doing and are as sly and cunning as Satan himself or so stupid as to not deserve to have any say in our public discourse on OUR public airwaves and OUR military radio networks.
This was a very disappointing article. I don't support Obama, but the middle-name gambit disgusts me. But not because it increases the chance of assassination -- that's ridiculous. The chances of being assassinated are so small and random, and dependent on crazy people, that you can hardly influence them one way or another. (I suppose Jodi Foster shouldn't have become famous, since that obviously triggered Mark David Chapman to kill John Lennon).
It's disgusting because it plays on people's fears by implying something that simply isn't true, that Obama must be a terrorist.
Obama's supporters need to find a much better response to the Hussein ploy. This road -- it'll lead to assassignation, is likely to have a different effect than the author here intends.
How about simply asking they why they keep using his name? "Because it's his name" is not an answer, because then we'd be referring to Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, John Sidney McCain III, Rush Hudson Limbaugh III, Willard Mitt Romney, Nancy Patricia D'Alessandro Pelosi, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, and Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa.
Jodie Foster inspired John Hinckley and the attempted assassination of Reagan. Easy mistake to make, but Mark David Chapman was just a random nut overobsessed with Lennon.
Pride has nothing to do with it. It's how and often in what context Senator Obama's middle name is used. 'Liberals' have enough sense to know that a name is just that, a name. We are just worried that 'Conservatives' don't have the required amount of 'gray' matter to rationally think and dis-associate Senator Obama's middle name with the former asshole from baghdad. I for one am sick and tired with the idiotic and utterly ridiculous fear mongering the 'wrong' wing is dishing out. (i won't call 'em right wing anymore, it may be mis-understood) This fear mongering and propaganda is doing the terrorists work by frightening the populus into submission and the government to bankrupt the country. I for one will NOT be frightened or persuaded by name calling to support anyone other than Senator Barach HUSSEIN Obama! I just wish that we could have a campaing that delivers answers to the real problems this country has instead of the "male bovine feces" shoveled out by talking heads in the media!
Give me a break. Telling people that Obama's middle name is Hussein will result in someone killing him... please... Does it play to fear of people - hell yes. Doesn't Obamamaniacs do the same thing when they predict Depression if Republican is elected or Doesn't Obama play on the fear of loosing jobs when he goes against NAFTA while winking to Canadians... Big part of our politics is to make people uncomfortable with other side... Every candidate is playing that game...
As for killing candidates: last time the candidate was killed it came from the hand of Palestinian (Robert Kennedy), so maybe Rush doing Obama a favour by safeguarding him from that side ;)
My poor dear deluded ProudNeoCon,
The sky in your world must be a really purdy offcolor. The impossible or the improbable never happens, huh?
The Titanic was unsinkable. The Earth is flat. Flying machines, never!
I know, you're the unspoken-of child of Connie "Who wulda thunk anyone would fly a plane into a high-rise" Rice. Only Tom Clancey and the guy who wrote the screenplay for "The Medusa Touch."
That's two whos.
Bet you never heard of Horatio either. Try Googling him.
Yes "Black Swans" do happen. The problem is predicting which one will occure. There were 1000 times more people predicting Martian invasion that planes flying inti a high-rise. Any event was predicted/described somewhere by someone. So what...
Uh, sorry to inform you of this, ProudNeoCon, but "Obama . . . goes against NAFTA while winking to Canadians" didn't happen.. THAT was the Cinton campaign that Ann Coulter, and all you Neo Cons are rushing to support, who not only did it, but then lied and tried to say Obama did it. I guess since you were okay with Dubya (or his surrogates) swiftboating John Kerry, you have no problem with your current favorite candidate doing it to Obama. You and Hillary deserve each other. Unfortunately, America doesn't. We've suffered enpugh under the current NeoConPoop already!
Sorry but Hillary is not my candidate... It was yu guys who defended her and her husband all those years...
Proud NeoCon-
I was all fired up to respond to your response, until I read your profile. I hope you won't consider this patronizing, but I have several friends who are Jewish and from the former Soviet Union. My understanding from them is that life in the Soviet Union was sh**ty, and if you were Jewish, it was even sh**tier, if that was possible. So, you come here and work really hard and make a (decent, I hope) living, and you don't get why people don't appreciate how lucky they are to live here. I don't know how on topic any of this is, but I decided that tonight, for once, I wasn't going to shout across the anonymous divide that is the Internet, and try to understand another person. Again, if you feel patronized by this, I'm sorry. Glad to have you here, expressing whatever opinion you have.
Ah, but fear of losing a job or having your social security cut is so much more tame than the fear that people with brown skin are going to come and blow you up in the name of their god.
There's fearmongering and then there's FEARMONGERING.
Fear of losing a job is MUCH greater than the slim possibility of being a victim of a terror attack. So which which one is worse?
Good point. The same chance of being struck by lightning AND winning the lottery (the same chance as being victim of a terror attack) vs. 5 - 8% of the population who currently are unemployed to the amount likely to be unemployed in a recession.
What I'm saying is fear of death is much easier to evoke than fear of joblessness-- it's just easier to get to that lizard brain part of us, as fear of losing a job requires at least some cognition (job = trade of work for money; money = trade for goods and services; goods and services = survival; MORE goods/More money = happiness, therefore LESS = unhappiness.)
Gee, there are no lefty nuts are there Steve? Oswald wasn't a disgruntled Communist, was he Steve?
Of course there will be nuts who want to kill Obama, as there will be nuts who want to kill McCaine and Hillary! It's part of the extremes of politics, going back (in our microcosm) to Abraham Hussein Lincoln! So what are you pushing? That Obama start travelling around in an "Obamobile"??
But these lefty nuts don't have anyone inciting them to violence, do they? Oh, ya, last time I read Mother Jones, Daily Kos, and The New Yorker I got so mad I wanted to go blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City.... oh, wait, that was Tim McVeigh, spurned on by right wing radio and their hatred of government.
I just think it's funny when Hannity, Rush, et al get mad at Farfel the Bee, etc, and don't see any irony. It's just that their racism and hate is much more subtle than Hamas, which makes it all the more dangerous.
This is why we need to spend money to educate our electorate in this country so that these cunning, self-serving motor-mouths will become irrelevant. They prey on ignorance and sadly they seem to win most times.
When I see at my job we are having to participate in all these diversity programs, it is a start, but it shows how deep-rooted arrogance on one hand and ignorance on the other are in this society.
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Posted March 8, 2008 | 08:18 AM (EST)