Is saying President Obama’s full name, simply being partisan by noting his middle name or is it no different than saying “Franklin Delano Roosevelt” or “Dwight David Eisenhower”?
Context is everything. If you were writing a biography about the man, using his full name would be appropriate. But if you were talking about his stance on an issue, it’s completely unnecessary and obviously trying to forge a subconscious negative image of the President.
Yes, but go ahead and say it if you feel you must.
Because, after all, Willard Mittens Romney ain’t getting elected anytime soon.
He doesn’t go by his middle name. Some people want to evoke hatred of Muslims and his name is an obviously Muslim name. It would kinda be like if someone’s last name was Kim and whenever we used their full name in a sentence then we referred to Kim Jong Un or Kim Jong Ill to remind everyone about those heathen, commie, tyrannical, mass-murdering Kims. Really unfair to the zillions of Kims who would never do such a thing, but there are worse things than being partisan. Like being partisan on the side of the Kims!
Not intrinsically, but it’s often used for partisan effect.
It comes off as partisan and trying to evoke fear of Muslims. Mostly because calling a president by his full name is rather rare. The only people that seem to do it with Obama are far right wingers and they also seem fond of writing his middle name in all caps.
Was he naughty? Are you telling him to go stand in the corner? Why do you want to use his full name?
And then even they don’t get it right, it’s Barack Hussein Obama II. (At least, according to Wikipedia.)
I agree with this. Only history will tell for certain, but I doubt that people will be referring to the current president as Barack H. Obama or BHO in the future.
I guess a good rule of thumb is whether the man himself prefers to use his middle name or initial. Obama never has, to my knowledge. GWB had a good reason to do so, because he had to differentiate himself from his father. But we’ve never had an Obama (or a Barack) in office before.
99% of the time? Abso-fucking-lutely! My middle name is shared with a Saint, a douchebag, and a bunch of kings, allowing for translations.
The only Presidents who have relevant full middle names that need to be mentioned are John Quincy Adams, George W. Bush, and their dads, as a disambiguation; William Henry Harrison, Taft, and any President where it would be weird not to use an initial as a general rule, like John F. Kennedy and Harry S. Truman. It’s even worse when people say “Hussein did this or that.”
Another right wing term for him I’ve seen is “Barry,” because I guess he used that as his nickname for awhile. I don’t know what the justification behind that is, like if it means he was hiding his “Muslim” heritage or what.
I’d swap out Harry S. Truman for Ulysses S. Grant. I’ve always noticed that the number of sources that refer to him as Harry Truman were more numerous than Harry S. Truman.
Yep. The only compelling reason to use a president’s middle name is to avoid confusion with someone else, or if he (or she) uses it themselves.
I think it’s just because Barry is a diminutive name, kind of like how folks referred to George W. Bush as “Dubya” or “Shrub” from time to time when they were criticizing or mocking him.
Context is (almost) everything.
In those rare cases when people use my own middle name, it definitely has an affirmative meaning. Because of the context.
In almost all those cases when people use Barack Obama’s middle name, it has a dismissive meaning. Because of the context.
Nuff said.
“Barry” alone is probably just using a childhood nickname to diminish the Prez. However, “Barry Soetero” usually turns up among the he’s-not-a-citizen brigade. It turns out that young Barack was indeed enrolled in at least one school in Indonesia under that name. Now, you and I would say that this was because Indonesia had looser standards about identity at that time, and it was just easier not to invite questions about why the little boy’s last name wasn’t the same as his mother’s. But there are folks who insist it’s because a) he was legally adopted by his step-father which b) stripped him of his US citizenship. The problem with this theory is a) there’s no evidence he was ever legally adopted and b) it would make no difference to his citizenship if he was, because the citizenship laws don’t work that way. And yet the conspiracy theory lives on.
Let’s take the example of Curtis LeMay. His middle name is Emerson. There’s no particular reason that I should ever bring up his middle name under normal circumstances. However, if there were a rumor that he was gay, and I wanted to subtly reinforce this concept, I might always use “Emerson” when referring to him, as it’s not a strong short macho type name, and it is the last name of a poet. So clearly I have an agenda that I’m trying to reinforce by my particular word choice.
If I wanted to make the other side of the case, he’d always be “Bombs Away” LeMay.
It’s fair to say that Rush Limbaugh probably doesn’t frequently refer to the President as Barack Hussein Obama because he is a diligent journalist who wants to be as precise as possible all the time.
On a different note, I think that middle initials are often used to make a person’s name sound more rhythmic, i. e. Harry S. Truman vs. Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson vs. Lyndon Johnson or George W. Bush vs. George Bush.
They standard rule for journalists is that you use the form of the name and pronunciation the person prefers to use. If you use a different name, you are showing a lack of respect and a partisan bias.
Then we’d get called out for identifying him to closely with his father, who wasn’t the greatest role model and was even on a US/UK watch list.
Isn’t ‘del ano’ Spanish for ‘of the anus’? It didn’t keep him from being a great president.