Swift-Boating Obama: Right-Wing Pundit Questions Senator's "Loyalty" to America
Debbie Schlussel Argues Obama is Muslim with Questionable Loyalties; Latest in a Long String of Smears by Pundits, Media
Washington, D.C. -- Taking the current media focus on Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) middle name a step further, right-wing pundit and regular MSNBC guest, Debbie Schlussel argued that because Obama's middle name is Hussein and the fact that his late father was of Muslim descent, Obama's "loyalties" must be called into question. In her December 18 column headlined "Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always A Muslim," Schlussel asked: Is this "a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?" She ended her column by asking if Obama becoming vice president instead would be acceptable. Answering her own question, she wrote: "NO WAY, JOSE ... Or, is that, HUSSEIN?"
"Schlussel's article is the latest example of the bigoted conservative attacks against Senator Obama," said Karl Frisch, spokesman for Media Matters for America. "While Schlussel's comments are among the worst, she certainly isn't alone. The public discourse surrounding Senator Obama has devolved into a petty game of who can say his middle name more often or insult his character and ancestry with the most zeal. It's time for this bigotry to stop. News outlets like MSNBC can make the first move. They shouldn't give people like Schlussel airtime to spew their hate-filled conspiracy theories because when they do, they undermine their own reputations as legitimate news organizations."
Schlussel's column fits into a larger pattern in the recent media coverage and commentary regarding Obama. Indeed, like Schlussel -- who has repeatedly appeared on MSNBC in the past -- numerous media figures have gone out of their way to highlight Obama's middle name in recent weeks, a detailed accounting of which is available below or online at the following link:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200612200005
- During MSNBC's special election coverage on November 7, co-anchor Chris Matthews remarked that Obama's "middle name is Hussein" and suggested that it would "be interesting down the road."
- On November 27, MSNBC host Tucker Carlson referred to radio host Bill Press as "a true member of the Barack Hussein Obama fan club."
- During the November 28 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, Republican strategist Ed Rogers referred to "Barack Hussein Obama."
- On the December 5 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, senior political correspondent Carl Cameron told viewers: "Though he's written two books about himself already, most people know very little about Barack Hussein Obama Junior's uncommonly privileged life."
- On the December 11 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, correspondent Jeanne Moos noted that "[o]nly one little consonant differentiates" Obama and Osama. She then added, "[A]s if that similarity weren't enough. How about sharing the name of a former dictator? You know his middle name, Hussein."
- On the December 11 edition of The Situation Room, CNN senior political analyst Jeff Greenfield compared the similarity of Obama's "business casual" clothing to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "jacket-and-no-tie look." Greenfield concluded the segment by saying: "Now, it is one thing to have a last name that sounds like Osama and a middle name, Hussein, that is probably less than helpful. But an outfit that reminds people of a charter member of the axis of evil, why, this could leave his presidential hopes hanging by a thread." He later explained on the CNN website that he was making "a joke."
- On December 13, Matthews teased another interview with Rogers by describing the strategist as "the one who just loves Barack Obama's middle name Hussein."
- On the December 14 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, Rush Limbaugh gave Obama a "nickname" -- "Barack Hussein Odumbo" (in reference to Obama's "big ears").
- On the December 14 edition of Hardball, NBC's Mike Viqueira announced "a man named Barack Obama, whose middle name, incidentally, is Hussein, running for president."
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I think this has a very good chance of backfiring. The rethugs get away with bigotry all the time, but this is so blatant and transparent that I just don't think it will go over well with the average person. Did people hate the football coach Adolf Rupp because of his name. I don't think so. These right wing tools just make themselves look sillier and more desperate every day.
The MSM in this country never ceases to amaze. Had media types back in 2000 noted that George Bush's middle name is the same as a popular hard liquor the howling from the right would be deafening. I fear the media has truly lost all sense of seriousness relative to being a part of the political and social contract in this nation. Now that "Wiggles" Limbaugh has weighed in (sorry, couldn't resist) with his opinion from the parking lot of a Denny's somewhere near EIB's studios can Annthrax Coulter's screeching voice be far behind or is she still busy running from polling place to place in Florida voting for the Republicans or her choice?
It has started already. This last election has done nothing to change the right wing: they will continue to lie, cheat, steal and smear. They are shameless and relentless.
Anyone who thought that merely winning an election would be enough to stop them should be convinced by the last few weeks of the futility of such naivete. These people really believe they can keep their power if they, like their leader Bush, just keep lying, hate-mongering, fear-mongering and using the basest of school yard insults and bullying to get their way.
If we are truly tired of this, we have to face them down EVERY time they do it. And the media is not going to help us, save for Jon Stewart and Keith Olbermann. WE need to flood the airwaves with protests. WE need to stand up to the lying bullies. WE need to raise holy hell to our representatives so they know we're behind them in this fight. WE need to do whatever it takes to make this stop.
If we don't, they'll never stop, and why should they? There is so much money and power in it for them. But for us, for the rest of our lives, this will be what our country is like.
I don't know about anyone else, but I can't take much more of their crap.
"Hussein" with "Saddam Hussein," or "Obama" with "Osama" and claiming they are one in the same proves the childishness of the accusers. One might also say that a gang member named "Jesus" is a God-like savior, or, because one's uncle in named Adolf that he believes in the supremacy of the "Master Race" and others should tremble in fear.