He Who Must Not Be Named

Michelle Obama has revealed the terrible truth: her husband's name is so powerful that it cannot be uttered without inspiring terror and dread.

Michelle Obama, who often has decried "the fear bomb'' that opponents have used against her husband for his middle name -- Barack Hussein Obama -- said in Canton, Ohio, today that it is happening again and shows why it's so important that he wins election as president.

"They threw in the obvious, ultimate fear bomb," Obama said today of her husband's 2004 Senate race. "We're even hearing [that] now. … 'When all else fails, be afraid of his name, and what that could stand for, because it's different.'"

As with most great questions of life, J.K. Rowling has shown us the way forth from this dilemma. Her villain Tom Marvolo Riddle so hated his birth name that he formed it into an anagram to give himself the title by which he reduced the wizarding world to abject terror: Lord Voldemort.

So, since his real name inspires terror, let's apply the same solution in reverse to Barack Hussein Obama's name and see what anodyne alternatives we come up with. Hmmm... some very promising candidates:

• Cabana Braises Hokum


• Cabana Amok Hubrises


• Cabanas Amok Bushier


• Cabanas Abhor Muskie


• Cabanas Ukase Rhombi


• Casaba Bohemian Rusk


• Casaba Manure Kibosh


• Caesarian Kabob Mush


• Maharani Abuses Bock


• Maharani Kabobs Cues


• Marihuana Babe Socks


• Marihuanas Cakes Bob


• Anaerobic Samba Husk


• Aback Amoebas Inrush


• Aback Abash Monsieur


• Aback Aha Submersion


• Aback Mania Rosebush


• Aback Sahib Enamours


• Scarab Bohemian Auks


• Scarab Banshie Oakum


• Scarabs Bemoan Haiku


• Abacus Amoeba Shrink


• Abacus Abash Moniker


• Amebas Caribous Khan


• Baseman Cobras Haiku


• Abrasion Ambush Cake


• Marabou Scab Hankies


• Chimaera Nabobs Auks


• Massacre Nabob Haiku


• Maraschino Babes Auk


• Maraschino Beau Bask


• Harmonicas Beau Bask


• Ashcan Kabobs Uremia


• Maniac Hauberk Basso


• Sharia Kabobs Acumen


• Sauna Kabob Chimeras


• Saurian Kabob Sachem


• Mania Backhoe Bursas


• Shamans Caribou Bake

But for my money, there's one clear winner. I want to hear the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House say these immortal words:

"Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.... BABUSHKA MACARONIES!!!"

Don't tell me the media aren't biased toward Obama

Certainly media outlets are on the prowl for opportunities to take unflattering, even subliminally damning, photos of Hillary.

First these pictures of her waving with what looks like a stiff right arm salute (Madame Goebbels, your car is waiting):




And now this (is she supposed to be standing in front of her boss's portrait?):



Lest you think I am cherry-picking, here's the kind of photo the media takes of Obama:



Some difference, huh?

Cindy Sheehan in Egypt for Islamists - Yahoo! News

Someone will have to explain this to me.  Even through the lens of her opposition to U.S. involvement in Iraq, how is it a good thing to demand the release of Muslim Brotherhood members -- who are standing trial on money laundering and terrorism charges?

Quoted from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080213/ap_on_re_mi_ea/egypt_sheehan_protest;_ylt=AsvwzSd3run0IFQl_4yUh8cLewgF:

Cindy Sheehan in Egypt for Islamists - Yahoo! News

CAIRO, Egypt - Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan joined a protest Wednesday seeking the support of Egypt's first lady in ending a military trial of members of the country's largest Islamic organization.

Under the watchful eyes of dozens of black-clad and helmeted anti-riot police, some 50 heavily veiled wives and children of 40 senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood detained for the past year, gathered in front of the headquarters of first lady Suzanne Mubarak's National Council Women carrying banners calling for their release.

"I am here to protest the trial of civilians in front of a military tribunal as this is a violation to international law," said Sheehan, who gained fame in the U.S. for her sit-in outside President Bush's Texas ranch following the death of her son in Iraq.

"As a mother of a son who was killed in the war, I presented a letter to Ms. Suzanne Mubarak to realize how those women and children are suffering."

How is it that in Cindy Sheehan's world, the only mothers who are suffering are mothers of terrorists... and herself?  She'd be a useful idiot, if she was useful.

Triangulating McCain

John Bicknell at Congressional Quarterly hits the nail squarely on the head: The Real Conservative Conundrum: A President McCain Working With a Democratic Congress.

Conservatives who have opposed McCain during the campaign have cited his positions on a range of issues — immigration, campaign finance, climate change, tax cuts, legal rights for detainees — where he has sided with Democrats.

But the positions McCain has taken are only part of the problem for conservatives.

As president, with a Democratic Congress, it is the other part — the stylistic part — that will prove to be a much greater problem for conservatives.

When McCain has been on the conservative side, as he has been on the vast majority of issues, he gives it full-throated support. He is not afraid of giving offense to appropriators when he sticks up for cutting spending, and he has not been shy about deriding Democrats who oppose the war in Iraq, to cite two potent examples.

But when he is with the Democrats, he is really with them. McCain is not someone who simply reaches across the aisle to form coalitions with the other side. He walks across the aisle, puts on the other team’s uniform and sings the other team’s fight song.

If he wants to accomplish things — and every president wants to accomplish things — he will have to do so on the Democrats’ terms.

That means his agenda will include those things on which he agrees with the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate:

• A cap and trade regime for climate change.

• Expansion of McCain-Feingold regulations for campaign finance.

• Expanded legal rights for enemy combatants, and probably the closing of Guantanamo.

• Comprehensive immigration overhaul, with a guest worker program and a path to citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants already in the country.

This will not be a “reaching across the aisle.” This will be a full partnership of the president and the Congress, who just happen to be of different parties. The shrunken GOP minority in the Senate might serve as a brake, especially on immigration. But it will be only a brake, not a standing astride history yelling “stop!”

Compare and contrast (excerpt from same article):

In his victory speech on Super Tuesday, McCain laid out his GOP credentials.

“I am a Republican because, like you, I want to relieve the American people of the heavy hand of a government,” he said. “I am a Republican because, like you, I believe government must defend our nation’s security wisely and effectively,” he said. “I am a Republican because I believe, like you, that government should tax us no more than necessary, spend no more than necessary,” he promised.

And, he said, “I am a Republican because I believe the judges we appoint to the federal bench must understand that enforcing our laws, not making them, is their only responsibility.”

Except that he's likely to be so busy selling out conservatives on the things the Democrats want that he's unlikely to be able to push back on those same Democrats for the conservative values (lower taxation, less government, non-activist judges and strong defense) that he claims he wants too. The Democrats are willing to accept compromise from opponents but never offer it in return (unless their re-election prospects are on the line): they're funny that way.

"... it would require an act of deep duplicity by Mr. McCain."

In his Feb. 7 Wonder Land column in the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger advises conservatives to shut up and get with the McCain program:

Conservatives, for whom any glass is always half full, have sold themselves short. Notwithstanding the moderate pedigrees of the three major GOP candidates on entry, all emerged from the debates as Reagan conservatives on what matters: taxes, spending, regulation and national defense. Most of the worrisome moderate positions were in the past.

When Reaganomics appeared in the late 1970s, the Republican establishment mocked it. Voodoo economics, someone said. Today for a Republican presidential candidate, it's gospel.

This is an achievement.

Some will say the debate promises were just politics. As opposed to what? Presumably moving people toward one's position is the point of all this daily political heavy-lifting. To now call a candidate's embrace of your ideas unacceptable is churlish and self-defeating. Conservatives won a decades-long debate in their party. Bank it. The demand now that Sen. McCain repudiate that old vote on the Bush tax cuts is an attempt at public humiliation. Ain't gonna happen. If life doesn't work for you without public penance, join a monastery.

Most of the distrust of the McCain candidacy is rooted in personal ill will. He's a hard case, and activists are often brittle. The fear is that one of the strongest impulses in a McCain presidency will be payback, and that he might sell out conservatives on taxes and the judiciary. That is possible, though by now it would require an act of deep duplicity by Mr. McCain. Here again, the conservatives should show more self-confidence.

Hmm... I don't think conservatives lack self-confidence. Rather, they are all too confident in their knowledge that Senator McCain is capable of acts of deep duplicity. Bill Clinton ran as a centrist and immediately began to govern as a hard-left liberal, until Newt Gingrich and the new GOP majority in Congress forced him to "triangulate" back to the center. Who in Congress will force a President McCain to triangulate, and in which direction? What in his record in the Senate indicates that he would even wish to stand up to Congressional Democrats to defend conservative domestic policies -- especially given the likelihood that they will demand he cave to their domestic policy priorities in return for allowing him some leeway on foreign policy and military affairs?