February 27, 2008

What's In A Name?

The Tennessee capital press corps has apparently just discovered a Tennessee Republican Party press release that they previously ignored when it was issued two days ago.

Apparently, using Barack Hussein Obama's middle name is a no-no. The TN GOP received back-to-back phone calls minutes ago from reporters for the Chattanooga Times-Free Press and the Nashville City Paper, asking the same basic questions, all of which ignored the main point of the press release, which is that Barack Hussein Obama is not a friend of Israel.

One of Obama's foreign policy advisers, Robert Malley, is anti-Israel and pro-Hamas. Hamas is an Iranian-funded Islamist terror organization dedicated to the eradication of Israel. Malley thinks we should do support Hamas. Malley is advising Obama on Middle East policy.

Did the media cover that? Ask about that? No. They fixated on Obama's middle name. Apparently, a story post at NashvillePost.com sparked the calls. The story is headlinedMcCain apology raises questions about state GOP, but NashvillePost.com didn't bother to actually pose those questions to the Tennessee Republican Party. No, they went and interviewed Democrats.

Silly, of course. Run a Lexis-Nexis search for the number of times the media has used Hillary Rodham Clinton's middle name, often to underscore her feminist leanings and independence from her husband. Do a search for how many times during the 1988 and 1992 campaigns the media called the first George Bush "George Herbert Walker Bush," to underscore the media's protrayal of Bush as a preppie elitist. Ditto the media's reference to Dan Quayle as "J. Danforth Quayle."

Don't looking for the media to show any consistency or logic in this, because it ain't there.

Update: It's gone national. Fox News Channel. XM Satellite Radio. JTA. Daily Kos.

Update: Obama's Wikipedia page uses his middle name.