Barry Hussein isn't the only candidate with name problems.
From Wonkette:
This is Bill Cahir, Iraq War veteran hero and Democratic congressional candidate from Pennsylvania's 5th district. His last name is pronounced "Care," as in "Care Bears." Here is a video of him trying to explain the pronunciation to Pennsylvania's rural voters, who don't buy his fancy-pants space alien phonics.
Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King wants to weigh in on the presidential election Let's take a listen:
An Iowa Republican congressman said Friday that terrorists would be "dancing in the streets" if Democratic candidate Barack Obama were to win the presidency.
Rep. Steve King based his prediction on Obama's pledge to pull troops out of Iraq, his Kenyan heritage and his middle name, Hussein.
"The radical Islamists, the al-Qaida … would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11 because they would declare victory in this war on terror," King said in an interview with the Daily Reporter in Spencer.
King said his comments were not meant to demean Obama but to warn how an Obama presidency would look to the world.
"His middle name does matter," King said. "It matters because they read a meaning into that."
This is the same man who in 2006, while speaking of death of terrorist leader Musab al-Zarqawi, said "There probably are not 72 virgins in the hell he's at. And if there are, they probably all look like (veteran White house correspondent) Helen Thomas."
Given that the Right wants to concentrate on Barack Obama's middle name, it might be wise to take a look back at some of the great Western heros of our time. Juan Cole explains:
I want to say something about Barack Hussein Obama's name. It is a name to be proud of. It is an American name. It is a blessed name. It is a heroic name, as heroic and American in its own way as the name of General Omar Nelson Bradley or the name of Benjamin Franklin. And denigrating that name is a form of racial and religious bigotry of the most vile and debased sort. It is a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages!
Christian, Western heroes have often been bequeathed Middle Eastern names. Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, the medieval Spanish hero, carried the name El Cid, from the Arabic al-Sayyid, "the lord."
Barack and Hussein are Semitic words. Americans have been named with Semitic names since the founding of the Republic. Fourteen of our 43 presidents have had Semitic names (see below). And, American English contains many Arabic-derived words that we use every day and without which we would be much impoverished. America is a world civilization with a world heritage, something Cunninghamism will never understand.
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