Or rather, does it equal Saddam? You see, Senator Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein. Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ but has a distinctly Muslim (Arab actually) sounding middle name, perhaps in honor of his Muslim paternal grandfather. Now that Obama is a rising star in the Democratic Party and is widely believed to be giving serious thoughts to a presidential run in 2008, an interesting drama is developing around his name.
Fingers are wagging in the political name calling. Republicans claim that the Dems started it all by calling the now defeated Senator Allen from Virginia by his full name, George "Felix" Allen and by slyly bringing up his Jewish heritage. I agree that Democrats are no babes in the woods when it comes to shrewd demagoguery. But that the Republicans are going to make much bigger political hay out of Obama’s name is an easy bet. After all, this is the party that has perfected race and religion baiting. The Willy Horton campaign ads used by Bush’s dad George H.W. Bush in 1988, racially charged ads against Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee as recently as the 2006 mid term elections or Rush Limbaugh never forgetting to call Bob Dylan by his birth name of Robert Zimmerman, come to mind. Even a French ancestry is enough to cast a pall of suspicion on a candidate in Republican circles. During the 1988 Republican primaries Bush Sr. (again!), pointedly addressed his opponent (Pierre du Pont) by his given name of Pierre instead of Pete, the name Mr. Du Pont preferred to go by.
A couple of examples of the first salvos being fired against Barack Hussein Obama (excerpt below) . Get ready for some early campaign fun. Does Hillary Clinton have an interesting middle name? Never mind, they already have a juicy tale about her first name.
Maureen Dowd is worried that the Republican smear machine is at it again, attacking Barack Obama by using…his middle name. It seems Ed Rogers referred to Obama by his full name on "Hardball" a while back, setting off indignation among some on the left. I don’t know why it came to Rogers’ mind, but it is true I included Obama’s middle name in an NR story (not available on the web) in early November:
"Obama has joked that he worried his political career was over after 9/11 because his name sounded too much like Osama. In fact, it’s better than that: Named after his father, his full name is Barack Hussein Obama Jr."
Whatever the source, Rogers’ comment caused MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann some distress. "We have this right-wing implication that you must have the right name or the right God to be American," Olbermann said. "This fellow Ed Rogers, among others, has taken to calling Senator Obama Barack Hussein Obama." Olbermann wondered what the proper response should be: "Is it to point out the racial element to this, or the religious element to this? Or is it just to say, this is beneath contempt and not worthy of any response?"
And now Dowd. "The Republicans are expert at tying Democrats to villains," she writes. "Mr. Rogers’s bad-boy mentor, Lee Atwater, yoked Willie Horton to Michael Dukakis. Mr. Atwater and his successors also liked to present their side as being more American."
Now, it is one thing to report Obama’s full name — that’s completely fair. In addition, it seems illustrative of the Obama phenomenon that so many Democrats have gotten so excited about him and don’t even know his name. On the other hand, it’s another thing to regularly refer to him by his full name when you would not otherwise do so — that is, were it not "Hussein." Hopefully that won’t catch on.
Of course, all this might generate a little more sympathy had not some Democrats in recent months become so fond of the name "George Felix Allen, Jr." During the campaign, winning Senate candidate James Webb routinely referred to his opponent as George Felix Allen, Jr. (just search for the name at webbforsenate.com.) Although it wasn’t even correct — Allen, whose father’s middle name was Herbert, wasn’t a junior — the use of Allen’s full name was clearly a campaign strategy, first, to diminish Allen, and then, after news of Allen’s Jewish ancestry emerged, to make an oblique reference to that.
So now Maureen Dowd, Olbermann, and others are upset about Barack Hussein Obama. Perhaps if they had criticized the whole George Felix Allen thing, they might have more credibility.
Accidental Blogger 
10 responses to “Obama = Osama?”
Separate from any other question, my primary confusion is: in what way is “Felix” a Jewish name? It’s a common German name (via the Latin), used by some assimilated German Jews (Adler, Frankfurter), but also non Jewish Germans.
Incidentally, just last weekend, I read Obama’s first book, “Dreams From My Father,” which he wrote soon after graduating from law school. It’s surprisingly good. I’d recommend it to anyone.
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I’d love to hear Piyush “Bobby” Jindal (Republican candidate for governor of Louisiana) speak up about this. But even if he were to do so, I’m sure it would be sotto voce.
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I too don’t get “Felix.”
As for Bobby Jindal, he must decide what he wants to call himself. Our name is usually not our choice -rather what our elders want to propagate and preserve through it. Some of us are happy to live with it and even consider it an honor and some don’t. If Jindal wants to be known as Bobby and we insist upon calling him Piyush, we would be doing exactly what Limbaugh does to Bob Dylan. We may consider it odd that he found it necessary to “Americanize” his name for political expediency. But that is his choice and not ours. Just as he chose to convert to Christianity. Which too should not be our concern even if we (those of us of Indian/Hindu origin) consider it an abandonment of his roots.
Numerous immigrant groups have changed / modified their names (and some also their religion), including family names, for different reasons. To make it easier for locals to pronounce it, to leave behind a heritage they no longer wished to uphold and above all, to fit in. Chinese immigrants are the most recent examples. Bobby Jindal isn’t the first one.
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Oh, maybe that came out wrong — Ruchira, I almost entirely agree with you, though I think that it’s quite unfortunate that we have to acknowledge the degree to which such Americanization is necessary or expedient. Just because lots of people have done it before doesn’t mean that we have to be neutral about the factors that make that seem so necessary, generation in and generation out. And I’m not neutral about it — I think it’s a shame and reflects upon the degree to which we our inclusiveness as a society falls short of an ideal to which I would prefer us to aspire.
But I hardly view that as a huge moral failing on Jindal’s part (especially since he was apparently 4 years old when he changed his name). In general, while I disagree with Jindal on probably, well, everything, I think it’s ridiculous the way some in the desi community take issues with him over his religious conversion and changing his name to “Bobby.” Especially when there are so many other things to take issue with.
What I meant though is that I would love for him, of all people, to scold those conservatives who want to make political hay out of Obama’s name. Conservatives have been attacking Democrats for calling Jindal “Piyush” by saying exactly the same kinds of things you are — they’re right about that, but apparently, they’re perfectly willing to play the same kinds of xenophobic games with Obama’s name (and Dylan’s), and it would be great to hear Jindal calling them out on it. If anyone would be, he’s an almost perfect messenger for that message, at least assuming he’s sincere about the platitudes he says about the Indian community and other immigrant communities. That’s all I was trying to say.
But I’m not holding my breath — in such a short time, Jindal’s already proven himself to be quite the go-along-to-get-along type, politically.
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Pied Piper:
Thanks for the clarification. I am with you. You are exactly right that one shouldn’t “have to” change names in order to fit in. It is unfortunate, yes. But if someone wants to play that game, it’s okay with me. And you are right about Jindal that I worry more about his political positions than what he calls himself.
On a related issue, have you noticed that a very disproportionately large number of boys and girls of Indian origin in the US are named Neal (Neil, Neel) and Pia, Maya, Monica respectively? These are not very popular names in India. But here they are. Don’t you think that the parents of these children are making a conscious choice looking into the future, to make it easy for their offspring to fit into the mainstream of both the new AND the old country?
Yes, perhaps Jindal should warn his party mates about the mean spirited motives behind such divisive name games. But like you, I too will not hold my breath that such silliness is going to disappear from our political conversation any time soon. And the Dems are not above pulling similar stunts (although I did not know that they call Bobby J. Piyush). It is just that the Republicans simply cannot help jumping on any xenophobic bandwagon that comes rolling down the path of smear tactics. It is almost a Pavlovian response with the right wing.
(See my post on Hannity and Prager creating an unseemly ruckus about Rep Keith Ellison taking his oath of office by swearing on the Quran.)
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I’ve definitely noticed that about Neil etc (perhaps deriative of Sunil, Anil, and others)? And Maya and Monica as well. (And even Bobby is quite common as a nickname.) Those are all somewhat ambiguous examples, in that they are still Indian-ish names. There are also much more blatant ones.
Maybe it’s my own axe to grind (you have absolutely no idea how much trouble people have with “pied piper”), but I confess that I don’t love any of it. That doesn’t mean that I would necessarily go around making an issue of it for any particular individual. To be sure, the natural tendency of something like that is to evolve and change over time, everywhere. And of course these are highly personal choices. At the same time, whenever anybody “plays the game” like that, it reinforces the barriers for the rest of us. Not that they are insuperable barriers, but barriers they remain. It feels like a dilemma to me.
In fact, I almost want to be able to say that precisely because he reaps political advantage from it, Jindal has an obligation (if asked about it, and given the chance to say something) to speak out against the people who would make an issue of the games over Obama’s name, especially if they are his allies and supporters. Unless, of course, he thinks it’s legitimate for him to say nothing while claiming an advantage in the political arena that people like Obama (or me) cannot claim, in which case he should say that openly. Maybe that’s going too far — not sure about that. Though I probably would say the same thing if he sat on his hands while his friends said and did any number of other awful things. Which he’s proven adept at — Jindal doesn’t seem to challenge his more xenophobic friends about anything. Kinda like John McCain v2.008 in that way — keeping awful company with nary a qualm.
I am sure about this. At least he doesn’t claim that he took the name after the Dimple Kapadia character. That (“Really, Bobby is an Indian name!”) would have been a bit too cute by half. ;)
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(part of that got garbled — I meant “…against the people playing games with Obama’s name….” Sorry for the clutter — shoulda previewed.)
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Why the trouble with “Pied Piper?” Is it the rats or people bothering you? :-)
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oh, the rats have no trouble — they all look like zombies and pronounce “pied piper” exactly as i tell them to, as if on command. especially if i start playing music. but for some reason, the people never seem to be able to pronounce it right — even the well-meaning ones look at me funny, raise their voices, squint, but they never can get it, no matter how many times i correct them.
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Pied Piper:
Try us. Some of us here might be able to say “pied piper” without squinting or raising our voices.
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