Many of you have already read today's front page post about how Rove doesn't think baiting Obama about his name is a good idea and how some state parties just can't resist. Even before this front page post, I read Juan Cole's post of the year, if not the decade:
So, anyway, Obama's first two names mean "Blessing, the Good." If we are lucky enough to get him for president, we can only hope that his names are prophetic for us.
Juan Cole lucidly and succinctly explains how Obama's full name fits into the grand scheme of great (and not so great) American's with names of Semitic origin:
It is a name to be proud of. It is an American name. It is a blessed name. It is a heroic name, as heroic and American in its own way as the name of General Omar Nelson Bradley or the name of Benjamin Franklin. And denigrating that name is a form of racial and religious bigotry of the most vile and debased sort. It is a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages!
What other names derive from Semitic languages?
Here is a short list:
John
Paul
James
Jesus
Darryl Issa, Republican Congressman from California, inventor of the most annoying car alarm in the world, car thief and the man who got the throw Gray Davis boulder rolling down the hill has a last name that is Arabic for "Jesus".
I don't think anyone would call General Omar Bradley a Taliban sympathizer because he shares a name with Mullah Omar.
Not to mention that two generals of more recent vintage, General George Joulwan and General John Abizaid (who speaks fluent Levant Arabic, BTW) have Arab names.
Benjamin (Bin Yemein) Franklin was almost certainly a great, if fecund, American. Even if he did want the turkey for a national symbol.
Cole points out that John McCain's adopted daughter, Bridget, is from Bangladesh and so McCain is almost certainly related to Muslims in the sub-continent by adoption.
And of course, the name of our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln is Arabic for "father of the masses" (ab + raham). I suspect that even the foulest, most racist Republican wouldn't call Abraham Lincoln a possible traitor (suspicion not valid South of the Mason-Dixon line).
Cole concludes his great post with these words:
Barack Hussein Obama fits right in this list of presidents with Semitic names. In fact, we haven't had one for a while. We are due for another one.
A blessed and good one.
I think we are due for yet another President with a Semitic name also.
P.S. I don't want to get TOO effusive here, but I suppose you can translate my title in English as "the beautification of the blessing", which sounds better than "trying to associate the name of an evil dictator with the guy with the big ears and furrin' name".