Maureen Dowd plays the false indignation card in her pay-per-view column of today, What’s in a Name, Barry?Posted on 12/02/2006 3:44:26 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
Maureen Dowd plays the false indignation card in her pay-per-view column of today, What’s in a Name, Barry?
The gist: those mean Republicans are trying to tar the rising star of the Democratic party [legally-mandated descriptor] by making malign associations with his moniker. The GOP's latest mischief - letting people know that the middle name of the junior senator from Illinois is "Hussein."
Bunk. Any possible shock value in the Barack Hussein Obama handle has already largely faded. And this being a nation that likes to see itself as open and accepting, I'd say that, should he stay in the race, by election time his name will be an absolute advantage. Predicted opening line at the 2008 DNC Convention - if it comes to that - "I am an American. And my name is Barack Hussein Obama." Cue the wild cheering on the floor as Katie Couric gets all misty up in the booth.
Trying to make her case against the GOP, Dowd takes things a campaign too far: "The Republicans are expert at tying Democrats to villains. . . Lee Atwater, yoked Willie Horton to Michael Dukakis." Sorry, Maureen. It was Dukakis who yoked Horton to himself by giving a weekend pass to the convicted murderer who took the occasion to rape a woman twice and brutally assault her boyfriend.
Even the Dukakis campaign had to acknowledge, in its own way, that the infamous "willie Horton ad" was fair. Note this from a 2004 Roger Simon column:
"What was [Dukakis] going to say about Willie Horton that the public would buy? This was best demonstrated at the time by a senior Dukakis aide who disgustedly pushed a piece of paper across a table at me and said: 'OK, you write our response to Willie Horton. You write the catchy phrase. You come up with the 30-second spot. You come up with the jingle. What are we supposed to say? That Horton wasn't let out of prison and that he didn't rape that woman? What the hell are we supposed to say?'"
Precisely. What made the Horton ad so effective was that it was true.
But back to Barack. His problem with the voters will not be his name. It will be his down-the-line liberal views that are at odds with the American electorate. Democrats might point to their mid-term success as proof that the country has moved left. But throwing the Republican bums out is one thing. Electing a Commander-in-Chief with a 100% rating from the uber-liberal ADA is another. Call him Barry Hunter O'Brien, and Americans still won't buy it.
Finkelstein recently returned from Iraq. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net
Maureen-false-indignation ping to Today show list.
Obama talked of his father from Kenya, I believe, meeting his white mother in Hawaii and them marrying. Good so far, right?
Then he skipped from the day his birth until his days at Harvard, completely ignoring his childhood and the madrasses(es) schooling that I have read that he had. Jay Leno dutifully avoided asking him ANYTHING about his first 18 years of his life. I wonder why.
Obama came across well as usual, but call me cynical .......... but, it just comes off as too polished and prepared a presentation. He's got this "Aw shucks, I'm just a regular guy trying to do good for the people act" down way too pat.
p.s.
He even lamented during the "interview" quite successfully to the audience about a political position that he lost a while back. He said he had spent so much money of his own and lost he was so broke that his credit card people denied him access. He quipped that his wife was real angry with him for losing the money. Oh my, poor boy.
It all looked so prepared, and Leno was his compliant and dutiful straight man. I could have sworn that Obama had Hillary type protection and promotion by the old media. The next two years will be pathetic watching the media try to decide who to fawn over more.
;-)
Very interesting - thanks for posting. The good news is that the political wheel grinds slowly but exceedingly fine [though we still haven't gotten Kerry's complete military record.'
****
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama
Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya, and Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas. His parents met while both were attending the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was enrolled as a foreign student. In his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama describes a nearly race-blind early childhood. He writes: "That my father looked nothing like the people around me – that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk – barely registered in my mind."
When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced and his father returned to Kenya. His mother then married an Indonesian foreign student, moving to Jakarta with Obama when he was six years old. Four years later, Obama returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents. He was enrolled in the fifth grade at Punahou School where he graduated from high school in 1979.
sheesh, they're trying pre-emptive spin.
"The political wheel grinds slowly" -- yes indeed, but mostly every American does not know how Sunmer Redstone/Murray Rothstein's Viacom dutifully removed the chorus of boos from the tape of the New York City 9/11 Concert directed at Hillary.
Sometimes that wheel, no matter how long it may grind, purposefully exposes little.
When did his parents marry and when was Barack born????
I hadn't read that before
I have read that in his first attempt at running for Congress .. Durbin didn't back him at all and backed his dem opponent
Not to be the devil's advocate, but if Rush continually did that in the future two years, would you think that would be above board?
media, schmedia.
The next period will also be a delight as the power to truth dessimates the old rules in every thinking American's mind and renders the "media" a pitiful charicature of its whorish self.
Yes. Barf Orama is a fake who needs to be under the scrutiny of the public.
;-)
You'll have to find out when his parents married.
He's married?
I appreciate your optimism, but "the old ruthlessly lying, liberal, socialist media" won big this year....... and I don't see them losing their sick effectiveness any time soon.
They're already putting out hit pieces on Mitt Romney!
The Mission of Punahou School
We are committed to providing an environment where students can:
Develop moral and spiritual values consistent with the Christian principles on which Punahou was founded, affirming the worth and dignity of each individual.
My wife and I went to a bizarre movie "Polyester" back in 1981. It was in "ODERAMA".
When you entered the theatre they gave you a card with about 10 scratch and sniff spots on it! During the movie during certain scenes on the screen came a message to scratch and sniff.
Barf Orama alright.
:-)
Nixon had an 18-minute gap. This empty suit has an 18-year gap that needs to be explained. Some of that muslim brainwashing of his formative years must have stuck with him. He needs to come clean about his Islamic roots. Where does he really stand on head-hacking and stoning, for instance?
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