WHO THINKS THAT MIDDLE NAME'S FUNNY?

by Steve Young

"Because I think it's funny."

-- Ann Coulter explaining why she uses Barack Obama's middle name (May 6, MSNBC Live)

Why are all you liberals so upset with using Barack Hussein Obama's middle name?

Isn't Barack Hussein Obama proud of it? Franklin Delano Roosevelt dealt with it and he had polio. Are you saying that Barack Hussein Obama can't deal with something a guy stuck in a wheelchair had no problem with?

Thomas Alva Edison didn't care if people used his middle name. What's the matter? Is Barack Hussein Obama afraid people will think he couldn't invent the light bulb?

I could go on and on, but I don't have to -- because the talk radio Lords of Loud already do.

"Now, may I ask a simple question? Is that his name? It is. So why can't it be used?"

-- Rush Limbaugh on using Obama's middle name (Feb 26, Rush Limbaugh Radio Show) .

What a great question, Rush. Three actually. The same number of parts that legitimately make up Barack Hussein Obama's full name.

Yes, Barack Hussein Obama's middle name is Hussein. If you don't know it, just turn on your radio and listen to John McCain's little buddy, Cincinnati's Bill Cunningham. Or listen to most any right wing show on the dial.

Really, I'm not kidding. Barack Hussein Obama's middle name is Hussein. Hussein, just like the Hussein in Saddam Hussein, the guy who was so evil we needed to invade his country to get rid of him.

Hmm. Wait a minute. I wonder... Tell me his last name didn't have something to do with his killing and plundering, not to mention the torture chambers. Didja hear me?! Hussein tortured his own people in torture chambers. Saddam didn't kill, plunder and torture. There must be millions of Saddams. It was Saddam Hussein who did. Not Saddam Clinton or Saddam McCain or even Saddam Alva Edison. Yep, the killing, plundering and torture was done by the same guy with the same last name that is Barack Hussein Obama's middle name.

If you don't get the point then you probably don't listen to talk radio. Or you believe the explanation of the uber patriotic hosts who plead innocence when they use Barack Hussein Obama's middle name only because that is his name. Certainly they're not using it as a scare tactic to inflame their fan base. Are they?

Call me crazy, as in Steve "Crazy" Young," but I they know exactly what their doing and they're certainly not using it to be funny. Even if that's their excuse, funny leaves the building the first two or three hundred times you use it. What they're hoping is that using "Hussein" will scare their patriotic fans into not voting for Barack Hussein Obama. No great revelation there. Sophomoric maybe. But no one ever accused talk radio of complex thought. Problem is, if it works as well as they hope it does, how will it affect the fans who may be one stamp from going postal?

The Left may crucify me for this, but I believe most of talk radio's right-wing fans are sane. Maybe even as many as 99.99% of them. But as Limbaugh and the boys are proud to promote, talk radio has tens of million fans who tune in daily. Some hosts have more than ten million alone. And if my math assumption is close, that means there could be 1,000 who are several miles off the reservation. Doesn't mean they'll pick up a gun, but maybe .1 percent of those 1,000 would.

Some may call it free speech. But is it free speech to yell "Barack Hussein Obama" in a crowded theater when that theater may be crowded with panicked talk radio fans who feel that if Barack Hussein Obama becomes president that it will be exactly like having Saddam Hussein as president?

And when that one nutjob wakes up one morning, believing what talk radio is trying to impress upon him -- that this Hussein may be just as dangerous as that other one -- he just may lock and load to save America from potential killing, plundering and torture chambers.

Farfetched? Maybe, but those who are perpetuating this type of scare tactic just might want to consider the ramifications of a tactic that works far too well.

Funny, huh Ann?