Is This The End Of "Hussein"?

Geez, if we can't call the Dem front runner "Barack Hussein Obama", I guess my own contribution - "Barack Hussein Il Jong Obama" - is really dead in the water.

Josh Marshall optimistically (but maybe not unrealistically) tries to raise the bar for McCain and create a new media standard - McCain should be held accountable for every bit of sewage that floats by in the right wing gutter this election season.

Interesting.  Ludicrous, of course, but interesting.  And does that make Senator Obama responsible for every bit of left-wing kookiness that floats by?  Fine, then let's ask the Senator to denounce Josh Marshall's shameless linking of John McCain with noted Nazi inspiration Richard Wagner.  From Marshall:

Hopefully, everyone can now see the McCain strategy for running against Barack Obama. Yes, we have some general points on taxes, culture wars and McCain as war hero who can protect us in ways that flash-in-the-pan pretty boy Barack Obama can't.

But that's not the core. The core is to drill a handful of key adjectives into the public mind about Barack Obama: Muslim, anti-American, BLACK, terrorist, Arab. Maybe a little hustler and shifty thrown in [Shifty?  Barack? Even shiftier...], but we'll have to see. The details and specific arguments are sort of beside the point. They're like the libretto in a Wagner opera, nice for some narrative structure. But it's the score that's the real essence of it, the point of the whole exercise.

McCain's campaign is a Wagner opera?  I deplore the suggestion that noted conservative John McCain's campaign takes any inspiration at all from the man who wrote the soundtrack for the Third Reich.  But I can not say I am surprised since there are folks on the left who still fall down laughing when they hear "Bushitler".

Let's also splash a bit of reality on Dr. Marshall for this:

Don't insult your intelligence or mine by pretending that John McCain's plan for this race doesn't rely on hundreds of Cunninghams -- large and small -- across the country, and the RNC and all the GOP third party groups, to be peddling this stuff nonstop for the next eight months because it's the only way John McCain have a real shot at contesting this race.

McCain can only win by slinging Obama's middle name?  Well, then, let me insult various intelligences by citing the latest Rasmussen poll:

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

With the general election campaign season coming soon, voters currently trust John McCain more than Barack Obama on issues of National Security, the War in Iraq, the Economy, and Taxes. Obama is trusted more when it comes to Reducing Government Corruption. The Republican hopeful has a slight lead over the Democratic frontrunner in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

Don't like Rasmussen?  How about this recent Times poll?

When all voters are asked to look ahead to the general election, Mr. McCain, the likely Republican nominee, is seen as better prepared for the presidency, better able to handle an international crisis and more equipped to serve as commander in chief than either of the Democratic candidates.

That gives McCain something to build on, one might think.  Shameless left-wing smears notwithstanding.

ERRATA:  Marshall has an UPDATE in which he tries to pretend that he is unfamiliar with Wagner and is writing strictly about the music.  Oy, vey!  Dr. M sure got ignorant in a hurry, if I know more about Wagner than he does.

CLOSING THOUGHT:  Since Dr. M knows nothing about Wagner's history, he may not know the famous Samuel Clemens quip - "Wagner's music is not as bad as it sounds".

REALLY CLOSING THOUGHT:  Tough day to Google on "Clemens".  Do include "Samuel", or go right to "Mark Twain", whose essay about Wagner not titled "Fear and Loathing in Bayreuth" is here.

I DEPLORE THIS RACIALLY CHARGED LANGUAGE:  Dr. M used "shifty" as a likely attack word; isn't that troublingly close to "shiftless", which someone somewhere surely associates with a common charge against African-Americans?  Or am I showing my age?  [Hmm, I thought I was kidding, but apparently some lefty somewhere can be relied upon to see anything as racist.]

Comments

[Don]

Polls? Ask Rudy how much stock to place in them.

[clarice]

Dear Josh,
Good luck with that one. (Did Sid slip it to you or did you come up with it yourself? PhD. from Brown, heh? )
Best.
J. Danforth Quayle

[Elliott]

There must be a George Felix Allen angle in all of this.

[MayBee]

I think it's more of a Piyush "Bobby" Jindal thing.

[anduril]

The core is to drill a handful of key adjectives into the public mind about Barack Obama: Muslim, anti-American, BLACK, terrorist, Arab. Maybe a little hustler and shifty thrown in, but we'll have to see.

Hmmmm. Let's see. Between his visage, his name and his auto-bio's preoccupation with race and identity, Barack Milhouse Obama (Mark Levin swears that's what he wants to be called now) can't do much on the Muslim, BLACK and Arab angles. As to the anti-American and terrorist charges, he kinda hurts himself by consorting with former terrorist bombers and advocating what sounds suspiciously like unilateral disarmament. The Rezko thing does add a little substance to the shifty hustler charge. Could be some problems down the road.

[clarice]

The reason I suggest he got this theory from his buddy Sid BLumenthal is that it is reflective of the paranoic projection Sid wallows in. It is the Dems who would do this to a "T" and always do--maybe because they have such stupid backers that symbolic rather than linear thinking is what works with them. Perhaps it's just because people like Sid are diabolic monsters for whom truth is merely an outre concept.

[Rick Ballard]

I find it extraordinarily difficult to be dismissive of a claim of pig ignorance by what's his name about any subject. What makes Wagner such an exception?

[Jane]

A bit off topic, but did you guys see this?

“Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama’s campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada’s ambassador to the United States, and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources,” CTV News reported. “The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.”

(link under my name)

[Elliott]

Good point, MayBee.

[clarice]

Thanks for that Jane. I'll blog it.

[anduril]

Run some of Marshall's Obama stuff (Muslim, anti-American, BLACK, terrorist, Arab. Maybe a little hustler and shifty...) through Rasmussen and the NYT, and they seem to "work together" (syn ergeô --> synergy) rather nicely with the public's view of McCain: "better prepared for the presidency, better able to handle an international crisis and more equipped to serve as commander in chief." I doubt Marshall would have come up with that stuff if he weren't just a little bit afraid that some of it could stick.

[Enlightened]

OT - Confederate Yankee has a interesting post up about the military wanting to outfit the Iraq army with M16's -

CY is questioning who the beneficiary of such a move might be? Colt - by way of Mad Jack Murtha????? Huh. One side of the mouth says we need to get out, other side says not before I profit a little bit......

[anduril]

“The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.” Shifty hustler?

BTW, I'd be happy to see Piyush "Bobby" Jindal on the ticket.

[Patrick Tyson]

The Canadians deny.

[Enlightened]

"I doubt Marshall would have come up with that stuff if he weren't just a little bit afraid that some of it could stick."

Which is why I think he wrote it - hoping the racists and bigots we all are would act accordingly. And so he's labeled us, but if we conform to the label - we suck. If we don't conform to the label - we suck.

So if I suck no matter what I do, I think the sucking should be suckworthy. All of which still won't make me vote for BO, but it might be more fun.

[Ranger]

"But for me nothing -- nothing in opera at least -- compares to Wagner."

Josh Marshall

Liberal Fascism indeed.

[anduril]

I must be soft in the head--how could I forget the wife under "anti-American." It surely can't help to have her reinforcing those negatives that Marshall is so afraid of.

[Bruce]

No mooslim, repeat, no mooslim should be elected to any office. Mooslims in fact, should have their immigration numbers restricted severely, they are enemy aliens.

What do I mean by that? Mosslims come from a very different culture. Islam is a "unified field theory" - a complete spiritual/cultural/political ideology. And the political aspects are very significant. It is anti-Western, anti-American.

'Nuff said.

[Neo]

You mean Wagner is out ?

Do I have to get rid of my DVD of "Apocalypse Now" as well ?

"Smells like Victory"

[ben]

The armoring, shielding and coating of Obamamessiah has begun. The liberal wagons are circling. Fatwas will be issued against any and all non-believers.

[Enlightened]

Hmmm, maybe the View can get Michelle Obama on the record as to the symbolism of Hussein As A Middle Name.

[vnjagvet]

Another bumper sticker:

Obama: Because Only Bigots Criticize

[ben]

I hear they are already monitoring all non-believer sites and taking names.

[Neo]

"Yes We Can" -- Dave Cash, the second baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1974

What is with this plagiarism thing ?

[Appalled Moderate]

Voter --
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;--
Thou art thyself, though not a real Hussein.
What's Hussein? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Obama would, were he not too Hussein call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title:--Obama, doff Hussein;
And for Hussein, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

Obama.
I take thee at thy word:
Give me your vote, and I'll be new baptiz'd;
Henceforth I never will be not Hussein

Voter.
What man art thou that, thus bescreen'd in night,
So stumblest on my counsel?

Obama.
With Hussein
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
Hussein, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I my ID, I would tear the word.

Voter.
My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words
Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound;
Art thou Obama and yet not a Hussein?

Obama.
Never Hussein, if my pollster dislike.

[GMax]

Polls? Ask Rudy how much stock to place in them.

Posted by: Don

Someone files this safely away until we need it. I can assure you our little troll will be back at some point, poll in hand and dancing like an excited little school girl.

[MayBee]

GMax, undoubtedly. But he won't be calling himself "Don" on those posts.

[PeterUK]

Wagner died in 1883 six years before Hitler was born in 1889.Josh Marshall has made a cat's ares of himself.

[PeterUK]

Moreover Richard never received a penny in royalties from the Third Reich.

[bgates]

OK, no more playing with Mr Dunham's name. But - following Ace - can we still at least enjoy such constructions as "Mr Joshua Micah Cougar Boutros-Boutros Marshall"?

I'm not sure what's funnier - that he thinks taxes and national security are fringe issues in the minds of the electorate, or that he thinks 'black' should be all-caps but 'anti-American' should not.

[bgates]

So if I suck no matter what I do, I think the sucking should be suckworthy.
I'm pretty sure that's plagiarized from 'Talking Points Memo'.

[anduril]

Islam is a "unified field theory" - a complete spiritual/cultural/political ideology.

An underappreciated fact.

Steve Chapman has an article on NAFTA: Dem Myths Collide with NAFTA Reality. An excerpt:

Are you now or have you ever been a supporter of NAFTA? Both candidates denied any complicity, past or present, and both vowed to scrap the treaty if the Mexican government doesn't agree to changes.

Obama makes a special theme of blaming this and other trade agreements for setting off a race to the bottom that destroys American jobs. "In Youngstown, Ohio," he said in a Texas debate, "I've talked to workers who have seen their plants shipped overseas as a consequence of bad trade deals like NAFTA, literally seeing equipment unbolted from the floors of factories and shipped to China." Why NAFTA would induce a company to move production to China is a puzzle, but you get the idea.

His campaign claims a million jobs have vanished because of the deal. That sounds devastating, but over the last 14 years, the American economy has added a net total of 25 million jobs -- some of them, incidentally, attributable to expanded trade with Mexico. When NAFTA took effect in 1994, the unemployment rate was 6.7 percent. Today it's 4.9 percent.

But maybe all the jobs we lost were good ones and all the new ones are minimum-wage positions sweeping out abandoned factories? Actually, no. According to data compiled by Harvard economist Robert Z. Lawrence, the average blue-collar worker's wages and benefits, adjusted for inflation, have risen by 11 percent under NAFTA. Instead of driving pay scales down, it appears to have pulled them up.

Manufacturing employment has declined, but not because we're producing less: Manufacturing output has not only expanded, but has expanded far faster than it did in the decade before NAFTA. The problem is that as productivity rises, we can make more stuff with fewer people. That's not a bad thing. In fact, it's essentially the definition of economic progress.

We're not the only country facing that phenomenon. China makes everything these days, right? But between 1995 and 2002, it lost 15 million manufacturing jobs.

Even if the candidates don't want to acknowledge the gains of the last 14 years, it's hard to see how they can blame NAFTA for economic troubles in Ohio or elsewhere. The whole idea was to eliminate import duties in both the United States and Mexico (as well as Canada). What everyone forgets is that we got the best of that bargain, since our tariffs were very low to begin with.

"Mexico had very good access to the U.S. market" already, says Charlene Barshefsky, who was U.S. Trade Representative in the Clinton administration. "What NAFTA did was level the playing field."

[Enlightened]

"I'm pretty sure that's plagiarized from 'Talking Points Memo'."

I'm a Racist, Bigotted Plagiarizer and Ace would probably say - a dirty, dirty whore. It's got a ring to it.

[ben]

I think Josh Marshall will soon propose Obama be appointed now as President and forego the election on the grounds the Messiah could be scratched or dented if subjected to such unnecessary distractions.

[PeterUK]

The fundamental law of Messiah's decrees the the chosen one never actually makes in a corporeal state.

[megapotumus]

The victocrat strategy is hilarious now that it is being implemented in Blue on Blue fighting and it is somewhat bracing to think that McCain is to become the target of his former buddies in the MSM to whom he was always their favorite Republican, but this crap that Obama of Hillary by virtue of their downtrodden status are not required to put in the bare minimum of political toil. Only lately has Barry so much as declared his policy on anything, much less been specific about policies. And when he does they are vapid, circular, ignorant and as utterly predictable as any MoveOn ad. These people don't remember McGovern. Good.

[GMax]

The latest on good ole whats his name, who shall not be mentioned for fear of offense. Look who else is taking offense - for running an AP photo no less! And I am sure the reporter just got all of those arab sounding names wrong, probably another member of the VRWC trying to derail the Hope candidate!

Wajir residents plan to demonstrate after Friday prayers to show their support for the Illinois senator.

Mohamed Ibrahim, who attended one of two crisis meetings held in Wajir on Thursday by clan members who hosted Obama on his trip, said Washington must immediately make amends to them and especially to the elder pictured with him.

"The U.S. government must apologise to us as a clan and the old man," Ibrahim told Reuters by telephone. "We have been offended and we cannot afford to just watch and stay silent."

He said it was essential Clinton "clear her name" too.

The old man in question was retired chief Sheikh Mohamed Hassan, a senior elder who deserved great respect, local residents said.

"He was the right person to perform any such activity like dressing a visitor like Obama with traditional Somali clothes," said another Wajir community leader, Mukhtar Sheikh Nur.

"We give special treatment and respect to any visitor."

If there was no apology, the elders said, they would demand the expulsion of U.S. troops based near Garissa town.

[GMax]

Maybe Michelle got her bad attitude from hanging around these guys for a bit on the visit?

[clarice]

In others news Survey US has a poll showing McCain beating O by 10 pts in Fla and Rush is running the cries of a Dem organizer to the effect that Jews will not vote for him/ (I told you so.)

[clarice]

Actually--it was a Mason-Dixon poll:
[quote]McCain leads both Obama and Clinton in potential general-election match ups with either candidate in the all-important swing state of Florida, according to a Mason-Dixon poll out today.

McCain leads Obama 47%-37% and Clinton 49%-40%. The Arizona senator leads the Democrats across the board. About 80% of Republicans are behind McCain. Only 66% of Democrats are behind Obama and 72% are backing Clinton in one-one-one match-ups with McCain. Currently, 17% of Democrats indicate that in a match up with Obama, they'd support McCain; 16% say so in a match up with Clinton. Seventeen percent of Dems also say they are undecided in a match up with Obama; 13% say so with regard to McCain-Clinton. Those numbers though could be a reflection of McCain being the presumptive nominee and Obama and Clinton still engaged in a fight for the nomination.[/quote]

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/02/28/713124.aspx

Rush transcript:

RUSH: Let me read a passage from this Adam Smith piece in the St. Petersburg Times about the Democrat Party fretting over a fractious tone. "'In the 66-some-odd years I've been doing this, this is the saddest election I've ever worked in,' said Ginger Grossman, a prominent Democratic organizer in Miami-Dade County, who says she hears countless Jewish liberals tell her they won't vote for Obama if he wins the nomination. 'It's outrageous, and it's breaking my heart. I know it's because he's black, or I feel it is,' said Grossman, a Clinton supporter who said she would also vote enthusiastically for Obama. 'The worst of it is when they start calling him a Muslim and say, "Why aren't they using his name, Hussein?" I pray God it can be overcome. It's devastating, but I'm hoping I can change it.'"

Well, I hadn't heard this one before. I hadn't heard that liberal Democrat Jews are opposed to Obama. Had you heard that? I hadn't heard that. Well, this is good. This is all good, folks, it's right into our plan. And, look, if we're not going to be serious about beating these people and they are serious about harming themselves, then we have to help them. Because my objective is winning, is defeating these people, is defeating the liberal Democrat Party, and since so few Republicans seem interested in that, we do have opportunities nevertheless for it to happen because the Democrats are in the process of tearing themselves apart here. It's probably far more than we even know. This is St. Petersburg Times, it's Drive-By Media, but it ain't big. Who knows what else is going on out there about all this, that we're not hearing. I mean, the moment there's a Republican rift, if the Republicans have a rift over the kind of cheese to serve at the campaign rally, that's a week's worth of stories. But we don't get those kinds of stories on the Democrat side until it's gotten to the breaking point.

So this is a new one on me, liberal Jews in south Florida have no interest in voting for Obama. That's what it says here, and it's from a Democrat strategerist. It isn't me. Now, does this mean they're going to vote for McCain? I don't know. Ah. May not have to. Ralph Nader has entered the scene again, really made Tim Russert mad yesterday. (laughing) (cont.)

[GMax]

Clarice

Well I remain to be convinced by action. I can remember some of my colleagues in a National CPA, intelligent, down to earth and otherwise conservative sounding individuals who nevertheless would never think of doing anything other than voting Democrat. These folks were Jewish. It always baffled me.

Next to blacks, this has been the most reliable of all voting blocs for the Democrats.

Frankly if Cynthia McKinney did not drive them away, I wonder if a Palestinian sympathizer ( with a close advisor with quite radical views on Israel and Palestine )is going to do so. Maybe that is why we are getting so much grief about his middle name. If everyone will just shut up, and listen to the Hope and Change and Chickens in every pot speeches, maybe the Jewish vote will forget his pro Palestine views.

[GMax]

How long before we see a pining for a butterfly ballot to hold down the number of ballots cast in Palm Beach ! It will happen if this holds up.

[clarice]

Cynthia McKinney wasn't sufficient to blast thru because she's a kok of relevance only to her then-District. This is a presidential election and it matters.
I knew this was happening because my mom knows she's the only one in the immediate family not a registered Rep at this point and so normally wouldn't volunteer her political inclinations, but she did and even volunteered that tidbit about McCain. These condo commandos eat. live and breathe politics--the notions my mom expressed didn't just pop in her head. I am certain the commandos have decided and the Dem organizer Rush quoted is telling the truth.

And they will not simply not vote. Not voting to them is apostasy. McCain's okay with them. They'll vote for him.

[clarice]

**KOOK**

[clarice]

Now, remember these are not big city urbanites..these are old retired Jews, largely from the East Coast but as well from the MidWest.
If you are talking NYC or CHicago or SF or DC YMMV

[GMax]

Still I seem to remember the numbers stack up as about 80% of Jews voted for John Kerry. If that number slips significantly towards 50/50 it means Barry what his name must get that many more blacks and 18-20 YO out just to match Kerry's performance.

We might be looking at the start of a rout. A big McGovern/Dukakis sized rout. Think about Connecticut voting Republican. If Jews abandon the Democrats there, that could easily happen.

[clarice]

Yes, it could, and next month it appears Hezbollah plans a major attack onIsrael which will further underscore the difference between Obama and McCain ---at last the condo commandos seem to grasp the difference between saying you support Israel while dismantling our military and defense capabilities and actually like you know being for an America strong enough to defend herself and be of actual asistance to real allies (as opposed to being a relief convoy).

[Jim Miller]

Tom - My own contribution to the name question is to call the junior senator Barack "Arugula" Obama. I think that nickname captures his essence better than Hussein. He was raised by whites (mostly) and spent much of his life in elite, mostly white institutions. Think of him as a snobbish white kid who is pretending, for political purposes, to be black.

Of course, the official Republican campaign can't use any of these names. But we can.

Clarice - Feel free to borrow from my post on the Canadian controversy. I put it up just this morning.

To all - Check out some of the comments from Canadians after that CTV story. They are not happy with these statements from Clinton and Obama.

[clarice]

Thanks, Jim, but the Canadians are adamantly denying that story.

[clarice]

I put the blaming of job loss on NAFTA (contra factual and idiotically protectionist in the Smoot-Hawley self-destructive sense) in a basket with other Dem initiatives like killing the Central American trade agreement, cutting off assistance to Colombia,wanting us in hell holes like Darfur where we have no national interest and out of Iraq where we do. And looking at that basket I've determined that one of our two parties is full of really stupid nutters.