Hussein

I think it's interesting that some people wish Barak Hussein Obama would lose his middle name. I saw a news report yesterday, in fact, in which a newscaster reported with an element of surprise that the president-elect plans to keep his middle name for the inaugural swearing-in. Of course he plans to keep his middle name.

What I find particularly interesting is the difference between what some Americans perceive and what people I overheard in Jordan perceive about Obama's choice to call himself who he is.

I heard some non-Americans talking, and they said they couldn't believe that Americans could be so unprejudiced as to pursue someone named Saddam Hussein as a sworn enemy one year and within the same decade to turn around and elect someone named "Hussein" to the highest office in the land. And they couldn't believe that Americans would be so open-minded as to elect someone with American and Kenyan blood with an Arab-sounding name. But it was their final observation that grabbed me: "Maybe if Americans did that...maybe they don't hate us as much as we thought."