Rove discourages ‘Hussein’ talk

February 27, 2008

It’s unexpected, but even Karl Rove is discouraging Republican attack dogs from throwing around Barack Obama’s middle name.

No less an authority figure than Karl Rove has warned Republican operatives from demagoguing Barack Obama’s middle name.

At a closed door meeting of GOP state executive directors in late January, Rove said the safest way to refer to Obama would be to use his honorific, “Sen. Obama.”

“The context was, you’re not going to stigmatize this guy. You shouldn’t underestimate him,” one of the executive directors said. Rove said that the use of “Barack Hussein Obama” would perpetuate the notion that Republicans were bigoted and would hurt the party.

Rove’s remarks come just one day after John McCain said he believes use of “Hussein” is inappropriate.

It’s unlikely the party’s far-right base is going to listen to either of them. Indeed, the Republican Party of Tennessee already seems anxious to reinforce the notion that Republicans are bigoted and don’t care whether it hurts the party or not.

In fact, it may only be February, but the Tennessee GOP isn’t holding much back.

Tennessee Republican Chairman Robin Smith says she stands by the state party’s use of “Barack Hussein Obama” in party criticism of the Democratic presidential candidate…. The state GOP on Monday issued a press release under the headline “Anti-Semites for Obama” that begins:

“The Tennessee Republican Party today joins a growing chorus of Americans concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States.”

The release cites Obama’s support from Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan and other controversial figures.

Smith said today that McCain’s comments do not change the state party’s stance and the state GOP will continue to use Obama’s middle name. That’s no different than saying “Hillary Rodham Clinton” or “Richard Milhouse Nixon,” she said.

“John McCain has to be elected. Robin Smith doesn’t,” she said. “We have a duty to inform the Republican base.”

Most of the country is nowhere near ready to get into a general-election mindset, but my hunch is Robin Smith’s petty nonsense comes across more as the sad rantings of a desperate hack than an effective political strategy. I seriously doubt there are Obama campaign aides sitting around thinking, “Oh no! How do we respond to such insightful and persuasive attacks?”

Rove, for a change, seems to be offering his party some sound advice. That Republicans will probably ignore it is fitting.

As I read elsewhere, Barack Obama has had that name his whole life and has been made fun of plenty about it.

If there’s one line of attack that he can beat back in his sleep, it’s this.

  • It’s hard to get Frankenstein to stop sometimes, an’t it Karl?

    I wouldn’t be surprised if Rove wasn’t trying to play this both ways, so he can make the Republicans look less moronic to the moderates and at the same time feed the islamophobic trolls who make up the base of the party. He’s probably telling them to knock it off with a wink.

  • “the Republican Party of Tennessee already seems anxious to reinforce the notion that Republicans are bigoted and don’t care whether it hurts the party or not.”

    They sound like some of their Dem peers who already used the tactic many a time.

  • I like the fact that he say s “would perpetuate the notion that Republicans were bigoted.”

    In other words he admits that people already think that Republicans are bigots.

    I wonder where they got that idea?

  • As much as Rove is unlikable, he does know what will play with approximately 50 percent of the voters. He knows that obvious personal attacks won’t play.

    I imagine that Rove read George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” not as warning, but as an instruction manual.

  • That’s no different than saying “Hillary Rodham Clinton”

    Well, except for the part where “Rodham” isn’t her middle name – it’s her maiden name. And she went by “Hillary Rodham” for quite a while after she and Bill got married (as many professional women do). Hussein is Obama’s middle name.

    And also the fact that she herself used the name Hillary Rodham Clinton for quite a while between the years of 1992 and 2000. That was what she wanted to be known as.

    But other than the facts, there’s no difference between the two examples.

    As for Nixon – I don’t claim any knowledge of why sometimes he was referred to as “Richard Milhous Nixon” and why sometimes he was referred to as “Richard M Nixon” and why sometimes he was referred to as “Richard Nixon”. I suspect that he probably put out campaign literature with the name “Milhous” in it, because I doubt that his opposition would even think they could score points by letting people know his middle name was “Milhous”. So again, not quite the same thing.

    (OTOH – I do know why he was often referred to as “that ^&$#$(@! Nixon”, but I don’t think that’s relevent to the discussion at hand.)

  • Of course, the Republican party is not, as a public policy, going to use race or Obama’s middle name, or anything else that could backfire on them. Why should they, when there are many surrogates, talk radio hosts, 527 organizations and others who will do this for them while allowing the party to deny any involvement or responsibility?

    And, when those folks are spewing whatever garbage they think might stick, I’ll expect some Republican water carrier to explain that the Party doesn’t condone any of this behavior and we know that’s true because even Karl Rove spoke out against it.

  • Ahh, the sweet, sweet smell of schadenfreude. Just think: a few short years ago Karl was sure they were only a few years away from permanent, Republican, one-party rule. Now he gets to see how he destroyed his own party for at least a generation or two.

    Must be painful to watch, but sadly not nearly painful enough.

  • I’m so tired of hearing about Obama’s middle name. Just use it when one would normally say a middle name. Why are we so petrified of a name?

    Do we put more emotional weight in dead petty tyrants than our own presidential nominees?

  • I find both amusing and unbelievable the idea that Turdblossom would warn against wingnut demagoguery. What other strength(s) do these clowns have? Oh, that’s right, I almost forgot. They’re the “party of ideas”. Usless, unoriginal, discredited, destructive ideas but ideas just the same.

  • There’s a simple reason they use the middle names for both Clinton and Obama. It’s not just because it makes her sound like a scary feminist and makes him sound like a scary Muslim.

    It’s because in this society we only use the middle name when we’re in trouble — whether it’s your mother using your full name to scream at you, or more seriously, a newscast referring to an assassin or a serial killer.

    John Wilkes Booth
    Lee Harvey Oswald
    Mark David Chapman
    John Wayne Gacy
    John Mark Karr
    Hillary Rodham Clinton
    Barack Hussein Obama

  • Maybe Karl understands that even the dumbest people in America understand that a middle name is something you are born with, and that Saddam wasn’t a controversial figure at the time. Am I reaching here?

  • Republicans bigoted? Who’dathunkit.

    Never trust anything Rove says. If he says the sky is blue and the grass is green, it would behoove one to walk outside and confirm such. When lies become second nature, even that person doesn’t know the difference. How is anyone else supposed to discern lies vs. truth?

  • It’s because in this society we only use the middle name when we’re in trouble — whether it’s your mother using your full name to scream at you, or more seriously, a newscast referring to an assassin or a serial killer.

    Beat me to it.

    While the obvious reason to use his middle name is to appeal to bigots who hate Muslims (or any other group of which they are not apart, for that matter), the more subliminal reason is because of, as TR noted, full names are usually reserved for those who did something wrong.

    (And the reason that is done is to not confuse, say, John Wilkes Booth the presidential assassin with John Booth, the everyday-Joe plumber.)

  • Slime and Pivot, Slime and Pivot.

    1) Surrogate issues slander – Karl Rove blows goats
    2) Candidate deplores it to both take the high ground while repeating slander –
    it is bad that George Stephanopolas said “Karl Rove blows goats”. Anybody who says that “Karl Rove blows goats” is coarsening the political discourse.
    3) Smile.

  • the use of “Barack Hussein Obama” would perpetuate the notion that Republicans were bigoted and would hurt the party.

    “Notion”?

  • John Sydney McCain.

    Ya know, I’m going to agree here with Rove. He and W were right about losing the hispanic vote if the Reps insisted on demagoguing illegals. So Bush offered a somewhat sane policy proposal for the situation. And the Republicans playing to their jingoistic base ran away from Bush, and lost the hispanic vote for maybe a generation.

    And I have no doubt that Republicans will use race and anti-Islamic hatered to drum up support for McCain.

  • The release cites Obama’s support from Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan and other controversial figures.

    Uh, yeah, well Timothy McVeigh was a registered Republican; has McCain ever publicly repudiated that link?

  • Radio host Cunningham was interviewed on NPRs “All Things Considered” this afternoon, the guy whose McCain rally warmup caused the recent turmoil about Hussein (which is a very common name in the middle eastern countries, and not just the name of the Iraqi tyrant). Mr. C claims he was just using the full name of a man who wants to be President, just like Franklin Delanor Rosevelt, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and so on (He had about 4 or 5 names in his list) and that Sen Obama shouldn’t have to hide his middle name. Okay … but context and vocal tone carry a lot of weight, too, pal. Get real … we’re not idiots.

    At the end of the interview, he said he was only lukewarm as a McCain supporter and was probably going to throw his support behind Hillary. Just what the Clinton campaign needs, eh?

  • Rove is simply repackaging himself as a “statesman” and McCain is pretending to be “above the fray”–the GOP has always wanted to run against Obama, and they haven’t succeeded yet.

    You’re seeing this push/pull, bad cop/good cop thing and it will go on until the nomination is settled.

  • One of the rules of politics is that if you can’t find anything to attack your opponent with, you keep looking until you find one. With the Clintons, they hounded every stupid “scandal” that came up and kept talking about it until they found a better “scandal” to focus on. But none of them really had any traction. It wasn’t until the Monica thing that they could finally prove Bill had done anything wrong and they used that to impeach him; to disasterous results. They made him more popular than ever.

    And with Barack, it’s even better. Because there are lots of super easy attacks they can make against him which really appeal to their childish minds; but no effective ones. If they didn’t have the “Hussein” thing to hit him on, they’d keep searching until they found something. But as it is, they think they’ve hit paydirt with what they imagine to be a clever pun on his name. And while they’ll keep hitting him on this and other offensive attacks, he’ll cruise through, laughing at them the whole time.

    Of course, Rove’s a separate issue, as he knows how totally idiotic all this is and won’t stop until he’s got a decent attack. But then again, he’s really not as smart as he’d like to imagine, so this might also be a head-fake. But I’m guessing he knows how badly this will all backfire and has his thugs out desperately scouring for real dirt. Perhaps they’ll find a picture he drew of himself wearing a crown in pre-K.

  • BTW, I think Bush is Walker, Texas Ranger because of his middle name. And McCain writes like Sidney Sheldon the novelist because of his. Or perhaps he’s Sid Vicious, and will OD in office. And the III after his name is just like King George III, meaning he’ll be a crazy tyrant who loses our colonies for us.

    Wow, I’m so clever! Maybe I can be a Republican too!!!

  • Senator Barack Hussein Obama. And, if one of those esses should snake into his surname (Osama), all the better, eh?

    Senator George Felix Allen didn’t like his middle name to the extent he didn’t even use the initial. I doubt however, that he likes his new middle name (Macaca) any better.

    And John *Sydney* McCain??? Good grief! No wonder he doesn’t like to use it, either; of four Sydneys I know, three are *girls*! McCain the sissy? The girly man?

  • He’s a man
    He’s a treasure trove
    Tell me what is your name
    I’m MC Rove

    That’s right
    He can’t be beat
    Because he’s so white
    From his head to his feet

  • “I seriously doubt there are Obama campaign aides sitting around thinking, ‘Oh no! How do we respond to such insightful and persuasive attacks?'”

    That’s just it: while there is nothing intelligent about the attack, it could be very effective. And call me a conspiracy theorist if you would like, but I really believe that if the faces of the Republican party are denouncing these tactics, we’re going to see strong but subtle efforts by the relative no-names to smear him in every direction. Look at the performance of Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) on “Real Time with Bill Maher” last Friday.

  • As a native and (usually) proud Tennesseean, I can not dispute the fact that the GOP establishment in our state is populated entirely by mouth-breathing troglodytes.

    Still trying to make TN a blue state, dammit. Slow going.

  • That’s just it: while there is nothing intelligent about the attack, it could be very effective.

    Uhm, Brian? In what way could these attacks possibly be effective? Until they give third-graders the right to vote, I think we’ll be safe.

  • While it may be hilarious to the giggling schoolgirl contingent of the GOP, every mention of the name Hussein is a reminder to normal Americans of Dubya’s failures and the course that McCain would stay.

  • I should mention that if his name was Barack Saddam Obama, we might be in bigger trouble. But Saddam was the evil name everyone was trained to hate. The last name was an afterthought. Similarly, John Adolph McCain wouldn’t be as bad as John Hitler McCain. If only we were so lucky…

    I guess we’re just stuck with John “100 Years in Iraq” McCain instead.

  • maybe the more they keep using the name Hussein, the chance of some RICH middle eastern citizen wanting to ‘donate’ some money to an outside organization like “moveon” will increase.

  • TR @11

    What about …….
    Mary Tyler Moore
    Dwight David Eisenhower
    Mary Rose Johanson (ok so she’s not famous)

    But my point is that middle names do not always necessarily equate with being in trouble or some sort of negativity.

    There are a lot of people with the first or middle name Hussein in the world. Just as there were (at least at the time of WWII) many Adolf’s (including my great Uncle Adolf). It’s just plain stupid to equate a relatively common name to just one negatively seen person. Maybe it’s time as a country we all just grew up and simply just stop all the knee-jerk reacting. I personally like the sound of the name Barack Heussein Obama. And I’d like it even better if it was President Barack Heussein Obama 😉

  • moi @37 – People used Dwight Eisenhower’s middle name? And why leave out such luminaries like David Lee Roth, Phillip Michael Thomas, Sarah Michelle Geller, and Haley Joel Osment? (Ok, I had to do a search to think of those last two.)

    While I disagree with TR’s point that three names are only used for bad guys, I do think there’s something to it and think it should be the person’s choice. People should be called whatever they want to be called. I mean, who wants to listen to a guy named “David Roth”? Not nearly as cool. And while I personally don’t like the Hussein part, I’m fine with letting the babies have their fun. Anything to distract them while we stay busy winning the election.

  • Biobrain @ 33
    Third graders have more on the ball than many Republican voters.

    Fortunately, I think there are many independents who would be very impatient with these transparent insults to their intelligence and they would go out of their way to find reasons to like the guy.

    It’s a wash, but tars the entire party in the process.
    CB and Rove are right. (Will I ever be able to use that sentence again this century?) The tactic is of minimal help to McCain and hurts those down ticket.

    John Sidney McCain
    *Snicker*
    Anyone want to place bets on THAT playground fight? Hussein versus Sidney.???

  • Barack Hussein Obama is his name.

    Just because repugnicans pronounce it as ‘Barack HUSSEIN Osama’ with the emphasis on the middle name and a ‘slip of the tongue’ on the last name does not mean they are bigoted!

    After all, they are showing restraint (so far) by not calling him Barack Nigger Osama. But not to worry, eventually the Tennessee rethugs will start running advertising with Obama in a picture with a white woman & the Corporate News Media with replay it 10,000 times (while bemoaning that it is being done).

  • I don’t know how calling someone by his legal name is a smear. If Barack was ashamed of that middle name, he could easily have had it changed legally. People do all the time. He knew he was in politics and chose not to change it.

  • I always thought they called Saddam Hussein “Saddam” to avoid smearing King Hussein of Jordan, who we like.

    President Barack Hussein Obama sounds pretty damn fine to me. Lots better than King George. But hell’s bells if it bothers you so much, call him Barry Houston O’Bama.

    Myself, I’ll be calling him Mr. President.

  • I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; if Saddam’s last name had been Bush, what matter?( maybe it is ya know old Prescott got around in his day)

    Hussein is as common as Muhammed in the Muslim world, like all those inbreds in Tennesee naming their kids Elvis.

    and then there’s King HUSSEIN of Jordan, a sensible Muslim. Why are people so F%^king obtuse?

    like flies to shite, Tennesee Republicans- you are THE WORST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD!!!!
    You’re weak schoolyard bullyisms aint gonna work this time- see you in November, at the flagpole, three o’clock for an ass-kickin.

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