What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
Pretty snappy stuff, that. Not my own, you understand. What with all of the plagiarism accusations being hurled hither and yon nowadays, a fellow can't be too careful about making sure he's not claiming another fellow's prose.
In this case, the late Mr. William Shakespeare's Juliet Capulet is complaining that if her boyfriend Romeo's last name were anything but Montague, they could start looking for wedding caterers and dining room sets.
But alas (a word, by the way, Shakespeare was quite fond of having a character say when clutching a skull), Romeo and Juliet never did make it to the "dearly beloved, we are gathered here ..." chuppah.
Which was a real shame, because they were nice kids, perhaps a bit chatty for my taste and somewhat headstrong, but still, they would have had it made if their names were _ say _ McGillicuddy and Ricardo.
I was reminded of all this by the recent unpleasantness regarding Barack Obama's middle name.
It's Hussein.
It means "handsome one" in Arabic, which doesn't sound too bad at all. But since it was the last name of the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, it probably hasn't hit the Top 10 list of American baby names.
On Tuesday, asked to get folks excited at a rally for Senator John McCain in Cincinnati, a right-wing radio host got a little obnoxious.
Bill Cunningham said the news media should shed what he insisted is their bias toward the Democratic Party and "peel the bark off Barack Hussein Obama."
That was one of the nicer things Cunningham said in his speech in which he used Obama's middle name three times and referred to the Democratic candidate as "a hack Chicago politician."
To his immense credit and showing a refreshing desire for a campaign that could just possibly focus on issues rather than vitriol, McCain quickly apologized for Cunningham's remarks.
"Whatever suggestion that was made that was any way disparaging to the integrity, character, honesty of either Senator Obama or Senator (Hillary) Clinton was wrong," McCain said. "I condemn it, and if I have any responsibility, I will take the responsibility, and I apologize for it."
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee said it wasn't appropriate to use Obama's middle name in a disparaging way.
"I absolutely repudiate such comments," McCain said. "It will never happen again."
Good for John McCain, whose statements were welcomed by the Obama campaign.
It's rather farfetched to think that making childish fun of Obama's name would sway people to vote against him because they might fear that he is some closet "Islamo-fascist terrorist."
Still, you never know.
There have been 20 Democratic Party debates and I don't know how many Republican ones. I don't think I've missed any of them.
At my house, a televised debate is cause for the popping of corn and giving the remote control a rest until the last post-debate TV pundit has run out of blather and calls it a night.
OK, I'm willing to concede that that's not normal, and I should probably get a life. But is that worse than not paying attention at all?
I was discussing the presidential campaign over the phone with a local office-holder _ a part-time politician _ the other day.
"Isn't it wonderful," this person said, "that the country is willing to seriously consider electing a black man president of the United States? And it's even more impressive because he's a Muslim."
Say what?
"A Muslim," my friend said. "Obama's a Muslim."
"No," I said, "he isn't. Obama's a Christian."
It took me quite a while to persuade the person at the other end of the line that Obama has never been a Muslim and is, in fact, a member of the United Church of Christ.
He got his name from his late father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a Kenyan who left his family when his child was 2 years old.
Now, if an intelligent, well-read, part-time politician can think the Illinois senator is a Muslim, there must be a whole lot of less-tolerant people who might assume the same thing and vote against him for that reason in November.
That's probably why, despite the best efforts of the gallant Mr. McCain, we probably haven't heard the last of the "Barack Hussein Obama" taunts.
It probably won't come up much in the fall campaign, but just in case you were wondering, John McCain's middle name is Sidney.
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Sam Pollak is editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at spollak@thedailystar.com or at (607) 432-1000, ext. 208.
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