Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish.
Posted on 02/26/2008 3:04:53 PM PST by kristinn
Two years ago, the Senate campaign of Virginia Democrat Jim Webb delighted in repeating ad nauseum the middle name of his opponent, Sen. George Allen.
The news media had a good laugh as Webb tried to undermine Allen's good ol' boy image by reminding voters of his non-hillbilly middle name, Felix.
An example of the Webb campaign's tactics can be found in an excerpt of a press release reported June 27, 2006, by the Hotline:
“George Felix Allen Jr. and his bush-league lapdog, Dick Wadhams, have not earned the right to challenge Jim Webb’s position on free speech and flag burning. Jim Webb served and fought for our flag and what it stands for, while George Felix Allen Jr. chose to cut and run. When he and his disrespectful campaign puppets attack Jim Webb they are attacking every man and woman who served. Their comments are nothing more than weak-kneed attacks by cowards. George Felix Allen Jr. needs to apologize to Jim Webb and to all men and women who have served our nation."
In one paragraph, Allen's middle name was used three times with malicious intent. The junior bit was incorrect, Allen's NFL head coach father's name was George Herbert Allen.
Without casting judgment, and with a touch of whimsy,The Hill noted on Feb. 14, 2006, this tactic of the Webb campaign:
Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) is taking hits for something he can’t control: his middle name. Allen’s Democratic challenger this year set about to referring to Allen sneeringly in press releases as “George Felix Allen Jr.,” a ploy to draw attention to the senator’s quirky middle name, one more readily associated with the animated “Felix the Cat” or the Odd Couple’s Felix Unger than with great statesmen.
Byron York has noted that liberal blogs and the Webb campaign reveled in using Allen's middle name:
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.
Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein, was first brought up in the context of the 2008 presidential campaign in December 2006 by Ed Rogers, a Republican strategist, on MSNBC's Hardball.
Slate columnist David Wallis wrote a surprisingly realistic assessment of the dust up that followed:
Just days after Barack Obama mused about running for president, Republican strategist Ed Rogers winged the senator on Hardball. "Count me down as somebody who underestimates Barack Hussein Obama," sneered Rogers, carefully enunciating Obama's middle name—a family moniker passed down from his Kenyan father and grandfather.
Obama's camp, which had not hidden their man's middle name or bragged about it, cried foul. "It wasn't a slip of the tongue, I know that," Obama's communications director, Robert Gibbs, told Maureen Dowd. "You can't solve Iraq with a campaign about people's middle names."
But you can't solve Iraq if your unfortunate middle name blocks your path to the White House, either. Obama's name tests the limits of American nomenclatural tolerance. Just say his full name to yourself. "Barack" is unfamiliar but innocuous. "Hussein" is the name of a loathed dictator and enemy. And Obama sounds eerily like the world's most wanted terrorist. (Right-wing Web site Freerepublic.com has featured a photoshopped image of "Senator Osama Obama," and Rush Limbaugh has called him "Obama Osama.")
One would be hard pressed to find a similar reasonable response these days when Obama's middle name is used. Between the mainstream media, the Democrats and John McCain, the use of 'Barack Hussein Obama' has been declared off limits.
This afternoon the AP reported that McCain denounced the use of Obama's middle name:
Asked whether the use of Obama's middle name — the same as former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein — is proper, McCain said: "No, it is not. Any comment that is disparaging of either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama is totally inappropriate."
I've searched and have not found an instance of McCain denouncing the use of George Allen's middle name.
Perhaps we need a new rule. Call it the Barack Hussein Obama rule. No liberal politician can be called by their middle name or middle initial. No more Martin Luther King--just Martin King from now on. No more John F. Kennedy--just John Kennedy. No more Hillary Rodham Clinton--just Hillary Clinton. No more Harry S Truman--just Harry Truman. No more FDR, LBJ, JFK, or RFK. Of course we'll still have Republicans like Richard Milhous Nixon to kick around with the Barack Hussein Obama rule.
At a time when America is at war with Islamic radicals, many of whom have Arab Muslim names, Americans are being bludgeoned with the hammer of political correctness to not take into account the name and background of a potential president of the United States who just happens to have an Arab Muslim name.
The double standard of tolerating the use of 'George Felix Allen' while denouncing the use of 'Barack Hussein Obama' would be laughable if the fate of our nation weren't at stake.
It is his NAME for Heaven sakes! Why are they (and the MSM) trying to hide it I wonder?????
Mccain doesnt know who he is. HIs supporters in Ohio wanted him there. Mccain was on a bus *L* He really doesnt listen to talk radio *L*
The only Felix I knew was an Irish lad.
They were 8 Republican U.S. Attorneys who Bush appointed and then fired.
The Main Stream Media created Barack Hussein Obama! They can love him all they want and create this myth if they want to.
It is the mission of informed citizens to expose Barack Hussein Obama for who he is and what he stands for.
So far the facts are very revealing that he is a threat to the Republic.
He is a socialist!
Barack does have a Muslim background. If he wants to hide from that background let him.
As for me I will take his Muslim background for what it is. It is a part of who he is. So far I know that he wants to meet with these radical Islamic leaders. The only problem is that he wants to REPAIR OUR IMAGE in the world when in fact it is Islamic extremists who are killing innocent people that have the image problem.
So, Senator Barack Hussein Obama... if you don’t like your middle name being used to define you... get your lawyer wife to change it!!
Hit.Nail.Head.
Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein
Excellent post.
Wrong. The Slate columnist, Wallis, who wrote that slanders Rush.
It's Ted Kennedy who called Obama "Osama Obama." Several times.
Rush only played the tape of Kennedy saying that.
Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish.
As someone with a very unusual middle name, I can state with certainty that those who ridicule people for their middle name(s) are usually idiots. It doesn’t matter what political party the holder of the middle name belongs to.
My grandfather's cousin, the late Rt. Rev. Msgr. Felix O'Neill of Co. Monaghen, started St. Patrick's parish in Brocton, NY. He changed my life when he gave me a copy of None Dare Call It Treason in the 60's.
bttt
LOL, yes I did, yes I did, yes I did!
All is fair in Love, War, and Politics. Ridicule of opponents that happen to be blowharded fools is always proper. Ridicule of the hack prophet Hussein Obama is no exception.
Richard “Milhouse” Nixon
John “Fitzgerald” Kennedy
George “Dubya” Bush
yeah, it’s used to make fun of or identify a particular trait of the President.
William “Blow Job” Clinton.....
see what I mean?
oops
Fr. Felix was from Dreenan, Co. Derry. My gm was from Co. Monaghan. Patrick was from Portglenone, Co. Derry.
I like to think of Barack Obama as many do, as simply B.O. as in Lifebuoy or as Hillary’s big problem, but really like being sure Hussain is in there somewhere. Perhaps BHO is not quite right, but if it were Hussain Barack Obama, then it would be HBO and he would have a broader audience.
Well said!
It was just fine for the ‘Rats when Jim Webb’s campaign made such mocking uses of George Allen’s middle name......... but let anyone use Obama Hussein’s middle name and some people go into meltdown. The REASON that it is relevant to remind people of Obama’s actual name is BECAUSE he is an eager de facto ally of the Saddam Husseins and Osama Bin Laden’s of the world. He is NOT someone a majority of Americans could ever vote for if they actually knew his real views, which are being artfully concealed from the public in a gaseous propaganda campaign.
Right now Obama is still doing all he can to undermine and destroy the success of our mission in Iraq, even as our troops are achieving successes that seemed unreachable (to many) a couple of years ago. He is also firmly comitted to weakening our efforts in the War on Terror, to strengthening the power and influence of our worst enemies such as Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc. and generally to seeking a posture of retreat and defeat for the USA. Saddam Hussein would be most pleased......
I don’t necessarily think he retains Muslim affiliations because of his family background (he does seem much more devoted to his crackpot racist supposedly Christian pastor).... I think he’s coming out of the hard-core anti-American left ala Saul Alinsky, Lynne Stewart and his Weatherman pals Bill Ayres and Bernadine Dohrn (in whose home he launched his first campaign for the Illinois State Senate). But when I use his full name it’s to remind people that he is NOT an honest defender of America’s strength and promise and success in the world — he is the kind of squishy leftist (now masquerading as a supposed centrist) who in the past has been overtly “pro-Palestinian” (just ask Ralph Nader) and far far far too sympathetic to America’s worst enemies, though now he tries to mask his radical beliefs. He would be the most far-left ‘major’ American presidential nominee ever, no matter what he pretends now about his vaporous hopes for ‘change’ and ‘unity’ devoid of any actual political and moral content.
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