Sticks and Stones Will Break My Bones ...

After reading Juan Cole this morning, we may have to change our "Good Post Alert" to "Great Post Alert".

Cole weighs in on the McCain flare up from Cincinnati the other day, when his warm-up act (and that is being extremely generous), local rightwing radio guy Bill Cunningham red-meated the crowd, denigrating Barack Obama in numerous ways, including the repeated use of referring to him as "Barack Hussein Obama" (this years' entry into the deck of Terror Fear Flash Cards).

So, Cole did a little research and came up with ...

Barack Hussein Obama, Omar Bradley, Benjamin Franklin and other Semitically Named American Heroes

A few snippets

"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!"

"What about other American heroes, such as Gen. George Joulwan, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander of Europe? "Joulwan" is an Arabic name. Or there is Gen. John Abizaid, former CENTCOM commander. Abizaid is an Arabic name. Abi means Abu or "father of," and Zaid is a common Arab first name. Is Cunningham good enough to wipe their shoes? Is he going to call them traitors because they have Arabic names?"

And that First Republican President?

"Abraham Lincoln, of course is, named for the patriarch Abraham, from the Semitic word for father, Ab, and the word for "multitude," raham,. Abu, "father of," is a common element in Arab names today.

McCain, the RNC, and more upstanding, respected GOP leaders need (and should) to stand up and put this slime down. It's childish and, as Juan Cole points out, quite un-American.

One of those persons is, in fact, Obama's cousin, Vice President Dick Cheney.

Highly recommended you read Barack Hussein Obama, Omar Bradley, Benjamin Franklin and other Semitically Named American Heroes ... It's highly enlightening!