Name games colour Obama's presidential bid

Chidanand Rajghatta / TNN / Apr 16, 2008, 01:11 IST

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Democratic presidential aspirant Barack Obama isn't surprised now when his name is mis-spelt or mispronounced -most frequently as Osama.

Name games colour Obama's presidential bid

WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential aspirant Barack Obama isn't surprised now when his name is mis-spelt or mispronounced -most frequently as Osama. The miracle, he chuckles, is that he is still in the fray despite the bloopers, and in some cases, smear tactics.
It happened again on Monday, and at a most unexpected event at that. At the news agency Associated Press' annual luncheon in Washington DC, Dean Singleton, AP board chair and a longtime newspaper executive, asked Obama about the possibility of shifting troops into Afghanistan to fight against the al-Qaida leader.
"Can you imagine shifting a substantial number of [troops] to Afghanistan where the Taliban has been gaining strength and Obama Bin Laden is still at large?" Singleton asked.
"I think that was OSAMA bin Laden," Obama corrected him wryly, as the audience broke out in titters.

Singleton blanched, and quickly apologized, saying, "If I did that, I'm so sorry."
"No, no, no, this is part of the - part of the exercises that I've been going though over the last fifteen months," Obama observed, "Which is why it's pretty impressive that I'm standing here."
The audience, including 1200 news executives, applauded Obama's wry wit.
This isn't the first time Obama has had his name mangled �� by accident or design �� even by the media.

Most famously, CNN, in a story earlier this year about the hunt for the al-Qaida leader, used the caption, "Where's Obama?" It later apologized for its "bad typographical error" after blogs and Obama supporters skewered the cable network.
Obama aides noted the ��s' and ��b' keys aren't all that close to each other, but accepted that it was an unfortunate mistake and there was no malicious intent behind the incident.
Even Obama's own Democratic supporter, the veteran senator Edward Kennedy, once accidentally referred to him as "Osama bin Laden."
But some conservative commentators have used the Obama-Osama similarity to slyly stick it into the Democratic contender.
Fox honcho Roger Ailes joked about the subject once, saying, "It's true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don't know if it's true President Bush called [Pakistan President Pervez] Musharraf and said, ��Why can't we catch this guy?"'
Obama supporters don't find it funny, but the candidate himself has been sardonic, but far from bitter, about the nomenclatural mishaps.
Even before the start of the campaign, Obama was once asked if he would be concerned about his middle name (Hussein) if he decided to run for president. His response, with a what-can-I-do-about-it shrug: "It would be one thing if my name was John Hussein Smith - this might be a problem. But when you are already starting with Barack Obama..."

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