Plus He Stopped Beating His Wife
Tuesday, December 18, 2007 at 11:10AM 
Ooh, it’s getting nasty! From Ask Figaro:
Quote: “It’s probably not something that appeals to him, but I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim. There’s a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal.”
Dog whistle politics? Bringing up a “bad” fact and saying it’s good? What is the real deal?
Arthur
Dear Arthur,
It’s a form of innuendo, Latin for “make a significant nod.” The classic campaign innuendo makes a vicious accusation against an opponent by denying it. Richard Nixon did it when he ran for governor against Pat Brown in 1962. He repeatedly denied that Brown was a communist, which of course raised the previously moot issue of whether Brown actually was a communist.Brown denied it, too, but his denials just repeated Nixon’s innuendo.
This time, it’s not the Republicans doing the sleaze. It’s Democrats. Former Senator Bob Kerrey, campaigning for Hillary, said it.
What can Obama do? Redefine the sleazebag’s quote: “Even Senator Kerrey, who’s for Hillary, thinks I have more international experience.”
Then let’s see ol’ Bob wriggle out of that one.
Fig.
Figaro
“I’ve watched the blogs try to say that you can’t trust [Obama] because he spent a little bit of time in a secular madrassa,” Kerrey said on the Situation Room with John King. “I feel quite opposite. I think it’s a tremendous strength whether he’s in the United States Senate or whether he’s in the White House.”
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Fig.