MARKET WATCH COLUMNIST
“Prez Puts Middle Name Front and Center,” Ellis Henican Sunday Column, Newsday, June 7, 2009
Finally, the middle name was a plus.
Barack Hussein Obama spent much of the week in a part of the world where Hussein is like Smith or Johnson. It slides off the tongue, hardly noticed at all.
All last year, he wore the name like an anchor, weighted down by political vulnerability. He knew more than most how a name like that, proud as it might be, could be turned into a weapon.
When crazy talk spread of his “secret Muslim history.”
When the faith of his fathers, John McCain’s expression turned upside down, was played against him.
When radio hosts sneered about this “other” who would be president, Barack HUSSEIN Obama.
It didn’t help, of course, that Obama’s middle name happened to be the last name of the Iraqi president or that his last name was one letter away from the world’s most infamous terrorist.
What an eternity ago that was.
Here he was in Cairo now, where “assalamu aleikum” sounds no more foreign than “hello” does in Washington.
And here he was addressing all of this as it had never been addressed before, tying his own family tradition to that of most Americans.
“Much has been made of the fact,” Obama said, “that an African-American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected president. But my personal story is not so unique.”
The dream of America is a dream for all who go there, he said, including nearly 7 million Muslims.
“I have come to seek a new beginning,” Barack Hussein Obama said.
MISSING IN ACTION
1. David Carradine’s privacy
2. American auto jobs
3. Rush-and-Newt’s racist-judge finger-pointing
4. Eminem’s dignity
5. The sun
CRUMBY: Sorry to hear that Jeff Hager of Hoover, Ala., and his “Toffee For Your Coffee” (a glazed, sour-cream cake doughnut with a Heath Bar topping) bested Smithtown’s Laura Sherland (her “S’mOREO” contained Oreos, Marshmallow Fluff and graham crackers) in the Dunkin’ Donuts bake-off. That was in the low-calorie category. All true, except the last part.
STEP IN: With two days a week in Garden City, calls and e-mail: That’s how Rhode Island’s David Joslin will oversee the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island. Now that ailing Bishop Orris Walker is leaving, Joslin’s keeping the seat warm until Bishop-elect Lawrence Provenzano is consecrated Sept. 19.
ASKED AND UNANSWERED: Why the sudden rash of counterfeit $100 bills? Just ask the free-spending man with the Brillo hair from the Islandia Stop & Shop – if the cops can ever find him . . . Are you one major illness away from bankruptcy? You could be. Medical bills are now the No. 1 cause of bankruptcy . . . Doesn’t anyone look in the mirror anymore and see a United States senator? Steve Israel, Scott Stringer and now Carolyn McCarthy have all said “no, thank you” to a Kirsten Gillibrand faceoff . . . Brookhaven zoning rules still need to be followed, but are the neighbors really worried the Sisters of the Cenacle will throw loud parties at their new retreat house? . . . Being a famous non-driver from Hempstead Village, does David Paterson have a special understanding of carless-in-the-’burbs? The guv’s now helping to steer Nassau’s Lighthouse project…A couple of bongs? Suffolk officials get all huffy with hero deli owner Mohammad Sohail over a couple of bongs? Bummer!…Victoria Gotti, anti-foreclosure activist? Don’t worry, no jokes here about the Mafia princess giving feds an offer they couldn’t refuse…Have you applied for your LIPA efficiency pool pump rebate? Deadline’s July 31 . . . “Ludicrous!” “Totally ignorant!” Is Steve Levy having trouble keeping his emotions in check? You should have heard the county exec sputtering at Vision LI director Eric Alexander’s suggestion that Route 58 in Riverhead deserves shoulders, bus lanes and bike lanes . . . Do you like making of politics? Comic Jim Mendrinos and I are doing our “Obama Comedy Duel” June 12 at the Bleecker Street Theatre (tinyurl.com/ocomedy). Come cheer for me and Barack.
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