Patton Oswalt has a hilarious bit about time traveling to ten years ago to talk to his then self.  He talks to his then self about the downfall of President Clinton and his BJ, and George W. Bush being a total idiot, and then the election of “black guy President.”  The way he delivers it is great.

Then Patton: What’s his name?  Thomas Jefferson Washington?
Now Patton:  No.  It’s Barack Hussein Obama.  I know that sounds like I just completely made up that name, but it’s real.  That’s how awesome 2009 is.

Now, Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize today - which he admittedly doesn’t deserve.  It’s another opportunity for the fraidy cats on the Right to keep uttering his middle name.  They say his name, especially the middle one, with such disdain as though he doesn’t even sound American.

Barack.  Hussein.  Obama.  Or, as the Right likes to use in the Twitter world: BHO.

Oh no!  His middle name is Hussein!  It sounds just like that Saddam guy that we killed in Iraq after failing the first time!  The name is so exotic sounding that it just proves that Obama isn’t an American.  He’s a Muslim Manchurian President from Nigeria that’s going to turn the whole country Islamic and rule with an iron fist that would even make the Tailban quiver!

Seriously?  That’s the best you’ve got?!

I refer people to the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s names project database all of the time.  It’s a database that the AJC put together of the names of kids born in the state of Georgia since 1990.  I defy you to go into that database and see what people are naming their kids. 

If you thought Dylan was emasculating, try King Delicious.  Someone named their kid that.  It was probably some goofball’s attempt to give their kid a unique name, not thinking out that this kid will be beat up for the rest of their lives holding a name like that.

I’m sure Barry Obama took a whole lot of flack for having an ethnically-inspired name that makes him sound more like a sultan than a community organizer.  That’s why he “denied his heritage” in his youth and went by that nickname.  It wasn’t a part of a lifelong covert plot to subvert the American culture as we know it.

My last name is Ballengee.  No one can say it right, much less spell it right.  There are plenty of jokes to be made about it. 

First name?  Ryan.  Not Bryan.  Not Rian or Ryann either.  Ryan isn’t a girl’s name.  And guess what?  It means “little king” in Celtic.  Plenty of fodder there. 

But I’m proud of my name.  It’s part of my identity.  I’d probably be a different guy if my real name was Scooby Jones.  I’m glad I’m not Scooby Jones.  I’m happy to be me and with how things have turned out in my life.

In the end, though, it’s just a name.  Would you eat an apple if it was called stinktaint?  I mean, maybe not.  But it would still taste the same.  Green would still be as vibrant of a color were it called pukehue. 

The fear that can be elicited from people by harping on words is such a ridiculous notion.  The Right does it so well, though.  Death tax.  Death panels.  Death ray.  All terms from the Right.  And they work.  People crawl into their Snuggies at the thought of these phrases, yet none of them are really true.

The same applies to our President.  Yeah, his name doesn’t sound like one applied to your run-of-the-mill, nondescript white guy.  But if Obama was an Amish guy who became President, no one would be scared.  Sure, the guy would have to live in an electricity-less shack on the East Lawn, but he could be President with that name and no one would bat an eye.  Make him a black guy that’s a lawyer with an Ivy League education, and he morphs into a terrorist fixated on “organizing” a revolt against the American way of life.

Does the Left go out of its way to overstate his cult of personality?  You betcha.  The guy’s not even 50 - or 300 days into his first year in office - and is worn out from trying to attack almost every societal problem gone unaddressed in the last twenty years.  By spreading himself thin, he’s made himself susceptible to mediocre achievements.  He’ll learn in time how to handle the challenges laid before him.  At least give him the courtesy to find his way. 

The Right was dumb not to do it with Clinton.  The Left was dumb not to do that with George W. Bush.  Now the Right could position itself as the holier than thou party (currently usurped by the Democrats) if they just put down their poison-tipped spears and try to ACTUALLY GET SOMETHING DONE.

Instead, though, both parties are jockeying in Congress to come up with the best name for their version of health reform legislation.  Senator Baucus’ bill is called America’s Healthy Future Act.  You could call it the Dogshit Babykiller’s Act.  It doesn’t matter what it’s called.  It matters what is does. 

The same is true for a name.