If liberals think Obama’s middle name is so objectionable, why don’t they complain to him about it?

Afghan-American novelist Khaled Hosseini is the author of The Kite Runner, from which a worthwhile movie was made. Unfortunately, he’s also an unhinged liberal. The Washington Post unaccountably published a column by him, quoted by Rick Darby at Reflecting Light, in which Hosseini seriously claims that it’s the depths of bigotry for Republicans to pronounce the middle name of Barack Hussein Obama:

I prefer to discuss politics through my novels, but I am truly dismayed these days. Twice last week alone, speakers at McCain-Palin rallies have referred to Sen. Barack Obama, with unveiled scorn, as Barack Hussein Obama. Never mind that this evokes—and brazenly tries to resurrect—the unsavory, cruel days of our past that we thought we had left behind. Never mind that such jeers are deeply offensive to millions of peaceful, law-abiding Muslim Americans who must bear the unveiled charge, made by some supporters of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin, that Obama’s middle name makes him someone to distrust—and, judging by some of the crowd reactions at these rallies, someone to persecute or even kill. As a secular Muslim, I too was offended. Obama’s middle name differs from my last name by only two vowels. Does the McCain-Palin campaign view me as a pariah too? Do McCain and Palin think there’s something wrong with my name?

Wow. Liberals used to think it was hell if you quoted them. Now they think it’s hell if you say their name.

As a further index of Hosseini’s objectivity, he dismisses Obama’s William Ayers problem as a complete non-issue, casting it as an unreal question of “six degrees of separation.” Sorry, Hosseini, but between Obama and Ayers, who worked as partners for several years in Ayers’ radical education projects, there were zero degrees of separation. While treating Obama’s extremely salient relationship with Ayers as though it were nothing, Hosseini gives complete credence to liberal media stories—for which the F.B.I. found no evidence—that people at the McCain-Palin rallies were shouting “kill” Obama, homicidally threatening behavior that he says was fostered by the hateful rhetoric of the McCain-Palin campaign, you know, that rhetoric that consisted of calling Barack Hussein Obama “Barack Hussein Obama.”

Hosseini is, in short, one of these “moderate” or “secular” Muslims who call Americans bigots for being concerned about Muslim terrorism and for thinking that it’s strange, or at least noteworthy, that a possible U.S. president has a middle name that is one of the most revered names among the religious group that is commanded by its god to conquer and subdue all non-believers in that religion. We’re not supposed to notice this. We’re not supposed to think that the growing presence of Muslims in America and the West presents any kind of alteration or challenge to our society. No, we’re supposed to think that everyone is exactly the same, and that to suggest otherwise is to resurrect the “unsavory, cruel” days of “our” past that “we” thought “we” had left behind. Hey, Khaled, if you don’t like America and its “unsavory, cruel” history, why don’t you go back to Afghanistan?

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Bill Carpenter writes:

Khaled Hosseini asks if he is a pariah who should be persecuted. Not at all, but after he has revealed himself to a broad public as a frantic (and tone-deaf) leftist, we are certainly entitled to regret he was ever allowed in the country and to inquire whether he has the legal right to remain here. If so, too bad. But at least we should learn not to repeat our mistake by admitting other leftists, who are much more likely to do harm here than good.

It is interesting that he prefers to speak of politics through his books. The strongest political message The Kite Runner carries to an American reader is that few if any Afghans should be allowed into the U.S. Great people at their best, but they clearly don’t belong here. The book’s second strongest message is that not one American life should be expended attempting to influence the political life of Afghanistan. If these messages are disseminated more widely as a result of his writings, Hosseini, unlike most leftist immigrants, will have made an important contribution to American culture for which he would deserve our profound gratitude.

Terry Morris writes:

You can call me Terry Dale Morris and conservative and Christian whenever the notion strikes you. Neither my name nor my political philosophy, nor my religion, however you determine to use them, offends me or makes me uncomfortable in the least. Know what I mean?

Why is it that liberals and people with non-traditional (to put it nicely) names count it denigrating to refer to them as such? Hmmm.

LA replies:

The answer is that when the Other refers to his culture, emphasizes its distinctiveness, and celebrates its expanding power in America, that’s fine, but if we refer to the Other’s culture in a critical way, or even in a merely neutral intonation not denoting approval, we are bigots. Thus to say that America is becoming a non-Western, nonwhite country and that this is great, is moral and good behavior. But to say that America is becoming a non-Western, nonwhite country and that this may be a problem for us and that we ought to think about whether this is a good idea, makes the speaker a hater. The essence of liberal tyranny is that only the liberal side of an issue is permitted to be said.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 19, 2008 04:28 PM | Send