John McCain has stuck his foot — make that both feet — in his mouth by joining the loud chorus of silence cloaking Barack Obama’s middle name.
Here’s what happened on the campaign trail Tuesday: A radio talking-host named Bill Cunningham (middle name not reported by The Associated Press) was warming up a McCain rally in Cincinnati (named in honor of a famous consul of ancient Rome) in the state of Ohio (derived from the Seneca Indian word for the river of the same name).
Three times, Cunningham (many Americans of that name trace their forebears to the Scots or the Irish or, saints preserve us, the Scots-Irish) referred to the senator from Illinois (that’s another renowned Native-American tribal name) by his full name of Barack Hussein Obama.
In whooping it up for the likely Republican presidential nominee’s impending appearance, Cunningham mentioned some unmentionables, according to the AP (the abbreviation for The Associated Press, once regarded as the gold standard of journalism, now known for having abandoned its formerly strict insistence upon naming names of sources).
“Now we have a hack, Chicago-style Daley politician who is picturing himself as change,” quoth Cunningham. “When he gets done with you, all you’re going to have in your pocket is change.” (A play on words, not yet held to be unprotected by the First Amendment.)
McCain wasn’t within earshot of all that, but wasted no time disapproving and disavowing such characterization of Obama. In so doing, he called all the more attention to Obama’s not-so-phantom family name, thereby further jerking his own campaign off message. That was Foot One in McCain’s mouth.
“I apologize for it,” McCain impressed on the press. “I did not know about these remarks.” (Then how did he know he didn’t know about them?) “But I take responsibility for them. My entire campaign I have treated Senator Obama and Senator Clinton with respect.” (Here the AP inserted the names Hillary Rodham in parentheses between Senator and Clinton.) “I will continue to do that throughout the campaign.”
Those two seekers of the Democratic presidential nomination are “honorable Americans,” McCain added, “and I want to disassociate myself from any disparaging remarks that may have been said about them.” (Were the remarks said? Or may they not have been said?)
Yes, in politics, and certainly in polite society, it is disparaging to call someone a hack, unless of course that person is a hack. And if the person is a hack, then that’s what he or she is, a hack.
Alas, in this day of slipshod nomenclature, when hot now means cool, dude means anything but well-dressed, you guys means either or both genders and what once were garden implements now are ladies of ill repute, one man’s hack is often another’s hero. So, call that one a draw.
But what’s so disparaging about being, if you are, a Chicago-style Daley politician?
Politician is another of those words that can be taken as either pejorative or politically correct. No collateral damage there.
In Chicagoland, Daley (as in Mayors Richard J. and son Richard M.) is a mightily revered name of civic pride. Why, those two Daleys made Chicago what it is today. So, who could possibly be offended?
And Chicago-style is . . . well, there’s no finer pizza than Chicago-style pizza. All faithful fans of the Cubs, the White Sox and the Bears know that, especially duh-Bearz.
So, that part of Cunningham’s eulogy couldn’t have been what lit McCain’s notoriously flammable fuse.
When inquiring minds of the press wanted to know whether McCain thought it proper to mention Obama’s middle name (which by some strange coincidence seems to bring back recollections of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein), he left no doubt.
“No, it is not,” McCain said. “Any comment that is disparaging of either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama is totally inappropriate. I will certainly make sure that nothing like that happens again.”
Uh-oh! There went Foot Two.
If it is inappropriately disparaging to utter Obama’s middle name, is it also inappropriately disparaging to utter Rodham between Hillary and Clinton?
Former President Clinton’s wife has let it be known in no uncertain terms that she is proud as Punch (as in the battling couple Punch and Judy) to bear the name of Rodham. After all, that’s what she was before she was a Clinton.
No one got taken to the woodshed for mentioning the names William Jefferson Clinton, or John Quincy Adams, or William Henry Harrison, or William Howard Taft, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or John Fitzgerald Kennedy, or Dwight David Eisenhower, or Lyndon Baines Johnson, or Richard Milhous Nixon, or George Herbert Walker Bush (say, there’s a mouthful!). Martin Luther King, Jr. never ran away from his name.
And who could ever forget Gypsy Rose Lee? She certainly had nothing to hide.
Is there something about Obama’s full name that he would rather no one noticed? Can’t think of what that might be.
If there were something sort of not-kosher about Hussein, then why didn’t Obama have his name changed legally before he went public with himself?
Why, then, apologize in defense of Obama for the use of his middle name, as if it were some kind of cuss word. Aren’t you the one who is insulting him if you say it’s insulting to call him by his rightful name?
Maybe Barack Obama is just as proud of being a Hussein as Hillary Clinton is of being a Rodham. Why not? It’s a name his parents must have given him with great pride. Mommas and daddies, regardless of religious upbringing, don’t name their little babies something they despise or are shamed to hear repeated.
Rodham is part of what Hillary Clinton is, and so is Hussein part of what Barack Obama is. It’s not like someone yanked those two out of the privacy of their homes, put a gun to their heads, shoved them in front of a bank of television cameras and tried to humiliate them.
Those worthies made a decision to run for president of a well-known country, which is not exactly nameless. It is, admit it, rather a public act to seek the key to the Oval Office door.
No reflection on her age, but Hillary Clinton has been around for several years. Not everything there is to know about her is known, but a whole heck of a lot is known. Barack Obama, though . . . now that’s an entirely different story.
The American electorate knows really very little about him. What are his mom and dad like? Ever see a photo or a live appearance of either? What was their son like growing up? Does he have brothers or sisters? Who are they? Where did they go to school? Where are they now? What do they do for a living?
If Obama’s going to be the next president — “only in America” — it might be kind of nice to know a little bit more about the fellow. Now, please, not later.
It’s astonishing how the left-listing masscomm has gone out of its way to excise Obama’s middle name from public view. The AP consistently refers to Hillary Rodham Clinton but to only Barack Obama.
McCain is in a fret because someone connected with his own campaign actually used the secretive H-word in mixed company. If this is how McCain handles a pop-up blister such as that, how will he handle a global crisis eruption?
What the Sam Hill (an east Tennessee hillbilly expression) is going on here? The phrase “what’s in a name?” has been around awhile, and for good reason.
McCain has a middle name, but don’t tell anyone. It is Sidney, which is a contraction of St. Denis, the name of the French martyr who lost his head around A.D. 250. Certainly nothing inappropriately disparaging about that.
So, not to be too nosey, what does Barack mean in . . . whatever language? Where does Obama originate, and what does it mean wherever that is? Something like Carpenter or Baker in English? Maybe it means politician.
In so many words, who really is Barack Hussein Obama?
Come to think of it, who really is John Sidney McCain . . . and is it all right to use those words in front of the children?
John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is a regular columnist for Newsmax.com.
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