Why Did Bob Kerrey Mention Obama's Middle Name - Hussein?

[ncabot22]

From Jake Tapper. Interesting.

Some Obama supporters have asked why former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., who endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., today, mentioned her opponent Sen. Barack Hussein Obama's middle name in remarks published in The Washington Post. (LINK)

"I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim," Kerrey is quoted as saying. "There's a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal."

Obama supporters see this in the same light that they see Clinton strategist Mark Penn's remarks on MSNBC's Hardball (LINK) -- that, as far as former Clinton campaign co-chair Billy Shaheen's remarks about Obama's youthful drug use, "the issue related to cocaine use is not something that the campaign was in any way raising."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2007/12/why-did-bob-ker.html

[David Dunham]

1. The Repubs will do this to Obama every day of the campaign.

[DrFunkenstein]

40. That Speaks Very Well of The Clintons - Dean Should Have Used Swiftboaters

Ugh.

[leftynyc]

74. That's just a small dose

of what the pukes have in mind. His middle name will be used every day, in every ad on TV and press. Those who don't think so are naive.

[Scriptor Ignotus]

81. i'll take Hussein over Cumstain any day

(sorry that was probably more graphic than needed) ;-)


but seriously, of all the straw men the Repubs will erect I would take a "muslim" middle name over a very public affair that almost impeached an otherwise excellent Democratic President. The Lewinsky scandal will be exhumed and brought up all the time too. In comparison, Barack Hussein Obama is a very tame alternative.

[leftynyc]

87. You are obviously well informed, not

to mention sane. Now, try and put yourself into the brains of the 53% of the people (or whatever the % was) that voted for smirky the chimp and add some more just cuz this country is way more racist than people like to think. Then combine all that with all the anti-Muslim sentiment generated by the administration and the press and then what do you see?

And yes, that was way more disgusting than you needed to be.

[Capn Sunshine]

85. Won't have to- Hillary's people are doing it right NOW

Funny how the monkey shit started flying the second they realized they had lost Iowa.

[1corona4u]

2. So what...

really, who cares. Jeez....people can't even state facts anymore.

[Herman Munster]

3. the obama people really look foolish when they whine about this stuff

So people can't even refer to him by his name now? What are we to call him instead? Mr. Absentee Senator?

[Nedsdag]

4. Boy! Someone's bitter.

Declining polls numbers getting you down?

[ncabot22]

5. I would expect no less from you, Herman

Considering you were the one who danced a jig of glee when the cocaine smear occured.

[aquart]

14. The name is a fact. The cocaine is a fact.

It's his name. He did cocaine.

But he's certainly the candidate all Americans will rush out and vote for.

Because whoever wins the nomination of the Democratic party wins the election.

I'll vote for him, IF HE WINS THE PARTY NOMINATION.

But his middle name is still Hussein. He was still dumb enough to use illegal drugs.

WAIT A MINUTE! There's your refutation of that nasty kindergarten ambition smear (still can't believe you took that seriously, but I guess if your candidate has been a wee bit less than honest about his towering ambition...I can see being sensitive about it)! If Obama was REALLY thinking about running for president back when, he wouldn't have let people see him take drugs! See? It all works out.

[ClarkUSA]

19. Bill Shaheen went beyond that and was "wondering" if Obama was a drug dealer.

And saying it's his name from the supporter of the same campaign who got caught multiple times sending out swift boating
"Obama is a dangerous Muslim who attended madrassa" is an example of the Rovian "Who me?" mendacity that plagues politics
as usual in this country.

[earthlover]

29. Hillary folks just can't give up the mud...I guess they like mud

Maybe mud is addictive? Or just an act of desperation.

I am sick and tired of it.

Don't the Hillary folks have something better to do? Like say why Hillary is worthy of our trust? Or is that too much to ask?

[jonnyblitz]

they are beginning to sound islamophobic. I understand their

sensitiveness due to the madrassa crap spread by the wingnuts but at the same time their hysteria every time the word muslim is mentioned in the same sentence as Obama sounds like they are implying being muslim is a bad thing. what if he were a moderate or liberal muslim? would this be a bad thing? :shrug:

[ClarkUSA]

23. The madrssa crap was spread by more than wingnuts -- Clinton campaign regional directors did it too.

There's an ugly pattern here if you care to see it.

[loyalsister]

34. I agree

The response to Kerrey bothers me. I interpreteded his comments as complimentary.
They are only insulting if it is bad to be Muslim or to have Islamic ethnic roots.

[dugggy]

61. Madrassa's are a crap? Tell that to innocent civilians and

their families who died on 911, the London subway bombings, the Spanish railroad bombings,
the Bombay commuter train bombings, the Bali hotel bombing, on going bombings in Israel,
etc etc etc. You know what the common thread is? They all attended some type of madrassa
and were taught to hate the kaffirs (non-believers).

[SOS]

75. The madrassa story was crap

Obama went to a public school, not a madrassa. What does your post have to do with the topic?
The madrassa story was a pack of lies:

CNN debunks false report about Obama:

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- Allegations that Sen. Barack Obama was educated in a radical Muslim school known as a "madrassa" are not accurate, according to CNN reporting.

Insight Magazine, which is owned by the same company as The Washington Times, reported on its Web site last week that associates of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, had unearthed information the Illinois Democrat and likely presidential candidate attended a Muslim religious school known for teaching the most fundamentalist form of Islam.

School not a madrassa

But reporting by CNN in Jakarta, Indonesia and Washington, D.C., shows the allegations that Obama attended a madrassa to be false.

"This is a public school. We don't focus on religion," Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school, told Vause. "In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment."

Vause reported he saw boys and girls dressed in neat school uniforms playing outside the school, while teachers were dressed in Western-style clothes.

"I came here to Barack Obama's elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa ... like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Vause said on the "Situation Room" Monday. "I've been to those madrassas in Pakistan ... this school is nothing like that."

"It's not (an) Islamic school. It's general," Winadijanto said. "There is a lot of Christians, Buddhists, also Confucian. ... So that's a mixed school."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/22/obama.madrassa/

[dugggy]

83. I am talking about the terrorists, NOT Obama

I have no reason to doubt that Barack Hussein Obama is a patriotic American.

[Joe the Revelator]

27. Give me a break. Obama supporters can't even say that Hillary's voice is shrill...

without there being an inquisition.

[ToeBot]

78. Shrill? Naw, I would describe it as grating, but I get your point. nt

[durrrty libby]

42. lol...you are the best

[tom_paine]

72. That's quite disingenuous, Herman. That shit might be expected to distract a bunch of Freepers,

but here at DU we have a little bit of a higher standard in terms of critical thinking skills.

As Bushie obfuscations often do, you leave me standing agape at your obvious and shameless hypocrisy.

Can you REALLY believe DUers can be fooled with such transparent nonsense? That there is no difference between calling him Barack Obama or Sen. Obama and calling him, as Ann Coulter does, B. Hussein Obama?

Obama is not my candidate, but what Sen. Clinton has done makes me so puking sick. Not to mention you, her supporters, playing the Bushie game while maintaining, just like the Bushies, that it's AAAAALLLLLLL a big coincidence and why do those Liberal Moonbats lie all the time?

Makes me SICK :puke: , Herman, and if I ever had during my period of candidate selection, any inclination of supporting Sen. Clinton in the primaries, the odious Bushie behavior, then Bushie bullshit like this, which treats all of us as if we are idiot children and deeply insults the intelligence, diabused me of it quickly.

[pinto]

6. He added:

He added, "He's got a whale of a lot more intellectual talent than I've got as well."

I'd caution reading too much into this.

[journalist3072]

7. This is stupid....when you look at Sen. Kerrey's comments, he was complimenting Obama

For Jack Tapper to make an issue of this, is nonsense.

How, what he needs to take issue with are those people who say "Do you really want someone named Barack Hussein Obama as President of the United States?" I've heard that from the right-wingers.

[ClarkUSA]

25. Right... and Bill Shaheen was just giving examples of what Republicans would ask.

Gee, with compliments like these, who needs madrassa emails?

[AX10]

8. It's really a compliement.

Read the ENTIRE article!

[ncabot22]

9. I DID

I just said it was interesting. From one perspective it is a compliment (not compliement--don't know what that is). From the other, it is a backhanded compliment.

[ClarkUSA]

28. With "compliments" like these, the Clinton campaign doesn't need to send anymore madrassa emails...

Implying Obama is a Muslim coming from a long line of Muslims masked as a "compliment" is as transparent as when y'all argued Bill Shaheen
was really trying to HELP Obama by "wondering" if he was a drug dealer because Republicans would do that. It's so nice when Clinton
campaign surrogates care so much about Obama that they are so "concerned" and so full of "compliments," eh?

[AX10]

35. Give it a break already.

:eyes:

[Name removed]

41. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BeyondGeography]

10. Kerrey likes Obama; he meant no harm

Plus, he's too independent-minded to be anyone's attack dog and he has never been able to follow a script.

[SoxFan]

15. BG is right

Bob Kerrey is one of the most independent minded people in American politics. He shoots from the hip, but he isn't a foam-at-the-mouth party hack like Billy Shaheen.

I'll give Kerrey a pass on this.

[sandnsea]

20. *sigh*

He meant harm. Don't kid yourself.

[Cha]

24. Of course, he did..he's

a desperate a$$hole.

[BeyondGeography]

26. Here's more

==Kerrey said he's spoken to Obama and his staffers and told them to "lead with it as a strength. There's this nonsense out there about him being a Muslim Manchurian candidate. He should do a commercial, look the camera straight in the eye, and say, 'My wife Michelle and I are Christians, but my father was a Muslim and my paternal grandfather was a Muslim, and that fact and my name means I can speak to a billion people around the world" who need to hear from the United States.==

It's not bad advice.

[sandnsea]

30. Yeah, done privately over the phone

Done publicly, it's a hit disguised as a compliment. At least Bob Kerrey claims it, doesn't try to sneak it into the media without any sourcing. I can respect someone who plays it that way. But it was meant to hurt.

[ClarkUSA]

32. Funny, the "nonsense" about him being a Muslim Manchurian candidate came from the Clinton campaign

His advice is the same as Craig Crawford's "advice" who suggested Obama "talk about" his past drug use to "clear the air."

So many "concerned" Clintonians with so much "advice". How touching.

[BeyondGeography]

36. Billy Shaheen has permanently poisoned the air

It's right to be suspicious. I've never known Kerrey to sing from someone else's hymnal though.

[ClarkUSA]

55. There's always a first time.

I've never known Wes Clark to "sing from someone else's hymnal" either. But he has been -- for Hillaryworld.

[BeyondGeography]

59. In their empty quest to move back to the scene of the blow job

the Clintons are putting themmselves and everyone else through hell.

[BeyondGeography]

60. In their soulless and empty quest to move back to the scene of the blow job

the Clintons are putting themselves and everyone else through hell.

[ClarkUSA]

62. Yup.

It's a grimly fascinating case of political pathology.

[Renew Deal]

11. I like Bob Kerrey.

He's a good guy. He's able to do this without being an asshole like Penn. We'll see how it plays out.

[Warren Stupidity]

31. Other than that slaughter of innocents thing, a real swell guy.

"The story had first been exhumed by Newsweek's Gregory L. Vistica in 1998. He established that in the Mekong Delta one night in 1969, in the village of Thanh Phong, a squad of Navy SEALs led by Bob Kerrey knifed to death an elderly couple and three children, then gunned down a cluster of women and children. Kerrey was cited for killing 21 Vietcong, and awarded a Bronze Star. Confronted by Vistica nearly 30 years later, he acknowledged that the citation was false and said he'd agonized over the killings ever since. A few days later, he withdrew as a candidate for the presidency. On that ground, Newsweek spiked the story as no longer of interest."
http://www.fair.org/extra/0108/kerrey.html

Recent disclosures by former Senator Bob Kerrey, concerning his service in Vietnam as a junior officer in a Navy SEAL unit, suggest that certain U.S. military units at that time operated under standing orders and employed practices that may have directly violated the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and resulted in "grave breaches" of that Convention, or war crimes. At the time of the conflict, all relevant parties were bound by the Convention, having ratified or adhered to it. Like all State Parties, the United States had, and still has, a binding legal obligation under the Convention to investigate any such alleged grave breach without statute of limitation.
Human Rights Watch has not itself investigated and thus does not take a position on the factual dispute reported in the press surrounding the precise acts committed by Sen. Kerrey and his unit at Thanh Phong, Vietnam, on or about February 25, 1969. However, the allegation that unarmed persons in their custody were killed also warrants investigation by the U.S. government because, if proved, such acts would clearly be war crimes.
http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/05/rumslet0507.htm

Former Senator Bob Kerrey, a Nebraskan who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992 and has been talked about as a prospect for 2004, has said a Navy SEAL combat mission he led during the war was responsible for the shooting deaths of more than a dozen unarmed civilians, mostly women and children. He said that he could not militarily or morally justify the mission, for which was awarded the Bronze Star.

Pham Di Cu, head of the foreign relations department of the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre, where the massacre occurred, told Reuters today that 13 children, five women and an elderly man had been killed in the attack on February 25, 1969. Kerrey has acknowledged that the killing of civilians took place, but he said the squad was returning fire and did not know that civilians had been killed until after the fighting.

Cu quoted surviving witness Pham Thi Lanh, 67, as saying the attack on the hamlet of Thanh Phong began in darkness at about 8 p.m. and lasted just 20 minutes. ``I think in terms of brutality, this was the worst incident in this province during the war,‘’ he told Reuters. "Personally, I think it was inhuman.’’

Cu also said Lanh had told how the seven-man squad—six masked Americans and a Vietnamese interpreter—moved from bunker to bunker in the hamlet killing people.
http://www.democracynow.org/2001/4/27/amy_goodman_questions_former_senator_bob

[IndianaGreen]

49. Tell that to the people he murdered in Thanh Phong village in February 1969

Kerrey led a death squad of SEALS that massacred every man, woman, and child in Thanh Phong village in February 1969.

It seems about right that a murderous thug like Kerrey would endorse an amoral war enabler like Hillary Clinton.

[Renew Deal]

71. Point taken

[Maven]

12. Are those facts or are they not facts?

Are you now going to bellyache over people stating facts that might be politically disadvantageous to your candidate?

[ruggerson]

13. This is truly getting absurd - it's his fucking middle name

If he becomes President, he will repeat it taking the oath of office.

It's. His. Middle. Name.

[SOS]

76. And yet Mr. Kerrey

doesn't refer to Mrs. Clinton as Diane.
How peculiar.

[Donna Zen]

16. So did Bob Kerrey

mention that he supported the war and the privatization of Social Security? Or was he too busy giving out the life history of Obama?

[JI7]

17. it looks like it was meant as something positive, pointing out Obama's life experience

and using his name as an example.

[ClarkUSA]

33. Sure, and Clinton surrogates usually go out of their way to say "positive" things about their rivals

:eyes:

[oasis]

18. Those who'd like to separate "Obama" from "Hussein" should say as little about it as possible.

[tammywammy]

21. This is silly

It's his name.

[1corona4u]

56. LOL...I know...

I guess if he got elected, we wouldn't be able to utter his name, LOL....it would just be "Mr./President BO", LOL....

[zulchzulu]

22. Technically, in 1961 when Barack was born, King Hussein of Jordan was an American ally

Here's King Hussein meeting with the Reagans.

As for Kerrey, his aside comment about Barack's middle name is certainly comical. Whatever...

[forsberg]

37. This is what we'll hear if he's the nominee

and don't think they won't contort Obama into Osama either, Hussein Osama, just the name alone makes him unelectable. That's all the murikans need to hear

[proudmoddemo]

38. More Rovian Tactics From the Clintons

The smear campaign continues...

[Quixote1818]

39. Fuck Bob Kerrey for pulling crap like that!

nt

[MalloyLiberal]

43. Bob Kerrey is a neocon

[IndianaGreen]

44. Why did Bob Kerrey order his SEAL team to massacre an entire Vietnamese village?

Perhaps because he is a racist sonofabitch, and that's why he also said what he said about Obama.

[AX10]

46. The left wing has gone overboard.

It's official.

[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[IndianaGreen]

52. And your side are enablers of war, torture, loss of civil liberties, and Bush's gulag

Support of death squads is not a family value.

[TwilightGardener]

45. Bob Kerrey is a snarky man. Funny how Hillary's middle name doesn't

come up. Or John Edwards' middle name. Or Joe Biden's middle name. Why Obama's? Kerrey did this on purpose, and I don't trust his motives.

[ruggerson]

50. People say Hillary Rodham Clinton all the time

her "middle" name (maiden) is used constantly.

[TwilightGardener]

54. SHE started using her maiden name. That was all her. I even remember

the little bit of controversy surrounding the "Rodham". I'm pretty sure Barack refers to his middle name about as often as the rest of us do with ours--almost never, unless we're signing an important document.

[ruggerson]

63. Since when are we not allowed to use people's middle names?

William JEFFERSON Clinton. Sound familiar? What the hell is wrong with Barack HUSSEIN Obama? It's his friggin' name. Good lord, I think some of you are truly going off the deep end.

[TwilightGardener]

64. What's the motive behind using his middle name? Does HE use it?

Do any of the other candidates have their middle names used? No. "Hussein" is thrown in there to make the Muslim connection stick in people's minds--you can argue that there's nothing technically wrong with it, but some of us know shit when we smell it. Bob Kerrey used a Freeper tactic, and he's full of shit. I'm glad now he's not running for Senate here.

[ruggerson]

65. Are you trying to erase a part of this man's identity?

Kerrey's remarks were CLEARLY genuine. But regardless, this Orwellian mindfuck of denying Obama's middle name is really, intensely bizarre.

[TwilightGardener]

66. Kerrey's a devious dickwad. He and Hillary are bosom buddies because of

their Norman Hsu connection--partners in crime! Those two slimeballs deserve each other.

[ClarkUSA]

47. "I like the fact that Hillary controlled Bill's long line of bimbo eruptions. It means she's tough."

"I like the fact that Bill is doing everything he can to support Hillary after he put her through so much hell with his serial adultery.
I think that experience is a big deal because it makes both of them so much stronger as a couple and as campaigners."

'I like the fact Hillary dropped her last name on her website and in her campaign literature. It means she's smart enough to know
that "Clinton" is the most polarizing political name since "Bush".'

These are all "compliments" Obama surrogates could give to Hillary. Aren't they nice? :eyes:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

51. I don't know what Kerrey's aim was, but it's actually one of the reasons I support him.

Electing a Black man whose middle name is Hussein will go a long way toward mending the foreign policy damage the Bush admin. has done.

Kerrey may have been trying to tear him down with that, or not. It doesn't matter to me. The fact is that the rest of the world is watching our upcoming election intently and Obama is hugely popular in the international community.

[Catherine Vincent]

53. Unfortunately it is his given name. It doesn't mean anything.

But he and his supporters better get used to it being used since he is running for POTUS.

[dugggy]

57. Because it is his real middle name? Hussein??

What is wrong with speaking the truth???

[emilyg]

58. Isn't that his name?

[JackORoses]

67. What an Ass! He goes out of his way to say Muslim as many times as he can.

With each of these desperate actions by the Hillarites,
my resolve to fight her nomination is further strengthened.

These are the worst kind of scum.

They slander you with a smile on their face and call it a compliment.
And when they get caught later, they tell you it was a joke and smear you as they apologize.

You can't get near them without getting slime all over you.

[Occam Bandage]

68. Consider it inoculation.

The Republicans are going to be saying it every day of the campaign. Best we get it out there before they do. "Stealing thunder," lawyers call it.

[Froward69]

69. A Rose by

any other NAME is still a rose...

[tom_paine]

70. Because Sen. Clinton's campaign has obviously decided to adopt Bushie tactics.

[Adelante]

73. There is no problem with use of Obama's middle name

I don't care about it except as it fits rather seamlessly into a pattern, now well-established by the Clinton campaign, where surrogates carry the negative message to the public (as surrogates are meant to do) and sometimes campaign officials at various levels. The negative message is being sold throughout the country by both white and black leaders who have endorsed Hillary. That Obama is not black enough, Bill Clinton is blacker and he slept with so many black women that, gee, Hillary is probably by now blacker than Obama, too - Obama is Muslim, not the practicing Christian he says he is - he was not just an adolescent drug user, but maybe, possibly, it just could be! a drug dealer - he studied at a madrassa as a child, which he did not - AAs are better blacks if they vote for Hillary, you know those white folks are going to kill that boy - white folks won't vote for a black man, they'll lynch him first, we're better off with those sure as hell Negroes, the Clintons!

That is a pack of lies and innuendo no matter what Obama's middle name is.

Kerrey's joined a conga line of a racist campaign policy. If Obama's campaign was using sexism as a campaign tool and dishonestly, wallowing in the POLITICS OF PERSONAL DESTRUCTION, believe me, I'd feel the same and would denounce it. Unfortunately, fighting back might just require it, and that will break my heart, if it does, but it would be hard to blame anyone fighting this kind of fire with fire.

[blm]

77. Because Hillary WANTS him to say it.

.

[joeybee12]

79. So, the Wyoming Obama supporter who said people hate Hilary

...he's a super-delegate...can't recall his name...can't hold Obama responsible...since he only ENDORSED him...is an entirely different story...

[truebrit71]

80. Because he's a f*cking asshole?

...that would be the most straight forward answer i think...

[hedgehog]

82. In 1992, Bob Kerrey claimed Bill CLinton couldn't win because he was a draft dodger.

He wasn't very friendly to the Clintons for years afterward.

http://www.observer.com/2007/strange-bedfellows-bob-kerrey-endorses-hillary-clinton


Of course, a $6 million federal contract for for Kerrey's New School may have made him reconsider his opinions.

http://www.senate.gov/~schumer/SchumerWebsite/pressroom/record.cfm?id=260048

[polichick]

84. I don't buy for one minute that comments like this and Penn's...

...aren't sanctioned by the campaign ~ people who believe that might want to purchase some oceanfront property the campaign is selling in Arizona.

[Capn Sunshine]

86. Why else? It's a strategy

Like no one knows about it. They just like to keep it up there because , since they lost Iowa, they are going to fling everything negative against Obama they can. It's how the Clinton campaign works.

Obama didn't overtake her by going negative. Only the inside the beltway fools that run Hillary's campaign would think that this would be helpful.