Blog P.I.

So, Barack Obama’s middle name happens to be Hussein, and this fact has been slowly working its way into general media consciousness for a few months now — most notably when Republican strategist Ed Rogers began pointedly mentioning it on “Hardball.” On December 18, plucky sub-Coulter Debbie Schlussel took this insinuation to its logical conclusion:

…is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father’s heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam?

Absolutely the most charitable interpretation of this is that Schlussel believes Obama should, instead of pursuing a career in politics, be parachuted in behind enemy lines to work as some sort of “undercover Muslim.” However, she continues:

Where will his loyalties be?

By this logic, one would presume that Schlussel isn’t too happy about Obama being a Senator, never mind holding any higher office. After all, the man’s father was a Muslim at one point in his life, for crying out loud!

Although the comment thread at Schlussel’s original post has continued to thrive, response over the last couple of weeks has not been disproportionate; at any rate, it has not been as disproportionate as I would have liked. Media Matters had a field day, as they tend to do when people say such transcendentally stupid things, and responses on the right ranged from pained to exasperated to really exasperated to really, really exasperated. The angelically beaming Brendan Nyhan points out the comparison with anti-Catholic suspicions of JFK (although really this makes even less sense, as JFK was at least Catholic), following up an interesting earlier post covering some more whimsical sniping about the size of Obama’s ears.

The measure of a presidential campaign is, in large part, how it deals with this sort of thing. (If we ever hear an official statement from the Obama camp regarding the candidate’s ears, then he’s toast.) Schlussel’s slur, at once serious and deeply non-serious, is a gift to a talented politican.

If I were working for Obama, I’d be looking for an excuse to make the “Hussein” non-issue into a signature moment, preferably sometime after the New Year (and after the execution of Saddam is no longer a story). A judiciously crafted public response could turn out to be an enduring image of a candidate calling for tolerance in the face of hysteria; unfortunately, it could also turn out to be an enduring spectacle of an otherwise dignified and serious man shouting at people on the internet. So, to avoid the latter possibility, I’d be looking around for someone other than Ed Rogers to raise the story’s profile in the old media, and I’d be wondering: how long has it been since Tom Tancredo did any bad ethnic humor in public?

Can someone in public life make sure he sees a copy of this Schlussel thing? Hopefully he won’t notice that “Schlussel” is a suspiciously foreign-sounding name.