blatham wrote:Each one of the "middle name included" folks that Okie mentions arrived on the political scene out of either family or local tradition where their middle names were often or normally included. Likely, some would have encouraged it hoping to gain an upper class cachet.
And of course, none of them had a middle name which might have been used as a PR slime against them.
Rogers did this last week during a period when Hardball was being guest-hosted. Matthews, on his return last night, brought Rogers onto the show as a first item and laid into him for what he'd done. Rogers was in full squirm and deserved to be.
Look, okie...let's do this honestly. I noted in my post that brought this matter up that Rogers' attempted slime was the single instance I've seen of anyone on the right attempting an irrelevant and barrel-bottom smear of Obama in the MSM (and I noted that Just Wonders tried it here on a2k - and actually Lone Star Madam did it too which will surprise no one). But this WAS an instance and you do poor service to honesty and the truth and your own integrity to attempt an excuse of it.
Are you seriously suggesting that your side of the poltiical spectrum would not notice if a GOP candidate's middle name was Hussein? It would not be mentioned? It would not be the butt of jokes or used in analogies? I don't know who this Roger guy is you're mentioning, but Greenfield, a registered Democrat, did use it in the interview discussed yesterday. It is a given that it will be used by Leno, Letterman, et al in their monologues from time to time.
Ted Kennedy has been mercilessly quoted on the talk show circuit when he butchered Obama's name in a speech. (And he did call him Osama Bama or something to that effect.) They're ridiculing Kennedy though, not Obama.
I hadn't even noticed what Obama's name rhymed with or what his middle name was until James Carville pointed it out when he was actually listing all of Obama's strengths and good points. (Want to call HIM part of the GOP slime machine?) And then, and only then, did I see the potential for mischief with the name which is why I mentioned some days ago that I wished he had a different name.
I like Obama. In fact among all the potential Democratic contenders that have surfaced so far, I like him best. And I think if everybody goes ahead and makes fun of the name now, it will be old hat by election time and no longer useful in anybody's 'slime machine'.
It isn't going to be the GOP who 'slimes' him at least now. The GOP fears Hillary far more than they fear Obama and they're going to encourage anybody who can cut into her potential. Divide and conquer as it were.
