thegreekdog wrote:Interesting (and somewhat disturbing) posts in this one. Am I the only one who finds this statement by the President to be even remotely bothersome? Some additional (perhaps disturbing) thoughts:
(1) Let's assume that there are a number of people in the United States that did not vote for President Obama because of his middle name. Are those people morons? Yes. And we would mostly all agree with that. So, we ridicule them.
Just because you regard people who didn't vote for the President as being 'morons' for not liking his name, does not mean that he supports your view. By saying that some people in the Middle East regard his name as unappealing his is not necessarily saying that they are morons.
Further, regardless of what he thinks of American's who dislike his name, it seems clear that he's making reference to culturally ingrained mindsets within the Middle East (held, presumably, by people who may well be very intelligent) that make 'name disliking' particularly prevelant there (as opposed to here, where only morons do it).
thegreekdog wrote:(2) Let's assume there are a number of people in the United States that did not vote for President Obama because of his middle name, and ONLY because of his middle name. Do you think it likely that those people exist? Do you think it likely that there is some hardcore Democrat, who has voted for the left for years, who said, "You know what, I agree with everything this Barack guy says, but I can't vote for him... that damn middle name... I'm going to vote for the guy I don't agree with and who I wouldn't vote for if it was simply Barack Herbert Obama." Really? Those people exist? In real life, the people who didn't vote for President Obama weren't going to vote for him even if his name was Herbert and he was a white dude.
Obviously not, that particular straw-man probably does not exist.
On the other hand, do you find it likely that there were large numbers of ill-informed people, perhaps buying in to all manner of off-the-wall 'birther' conspiracy loopyness, that seized upon his middle name as an additonal string to add to their 'irrationally dislking Obama' bow?
I would submit that those people existed in very great numbers indeed.
thegreekdog wrote:(3) The Israelis don't like President Obama because of his foreign policy towards Israel and the Middle East. Get a grip people. Are their opinions correct? I don't know; but, frankly, I doubt it has anything to do with the President's middle name.
Who is seriously suggesting that it is?
I find it much more likely to imagine that they are using his middle name as one factor amongst many, using it to compound their original distrust/dislike rather than having it as the root cause.
thegreekdog wrote:So, what I see here is the same strategy I've seen in the past three years or so from the President and Democrats (that seems to work) - marginalize anyone who doesn't agree with you by pointing to false ideas (or perhaps isolated thoughts) of certain people in that particular group.
Really?
Because what I see here is you starting with a conclusion, that Democrats marginalise and lie about everybody they don't like, then working backwards through the topic at hand in an effort to find an interpretation that fits your desired outcome. Nobody is being 'marginalised' in any way, shape or form; you're just grabbing onto a perfectly reasonable statement, denying it context, then trying to paint it as a slur against a nation's intelligence .
Now that may well draw rousing "Hell yeah!" choruses from your fellow Republican thinkers who have a vested interest in agreeing with you on this, but I doubt that its flimsly premise will convince too many of the neutrals.
Also, slightly hard to shed too many tears about 'tea party' fruitloops being marginalised. After all they were the ones that turned up to meetings clad in period garb, swapping conspiracy 'birther' nonesense and weilding placards depicting Obama as a witch-doctor and a murderous comicbook character. After that, they were headed directly to the margins without any need for anybody to help them along the way.
