Dems: Toughen Up...Or Else

If you know my writing at all, you know I am pretty skeptical of politicians who try to lead by using facts and logic. Why? Because, if you occupy a highly-public position, people judge you mostly by how you look, how you carry yourself, how you sound and not so much by what you say. This is not to say that ideas and plans are irrelevant. It's just that you need to take special care with the other stuff first, otherwise you are handicapping yourself from the very beginning. Or worse yet, you are letting your opponent do it for you. Just ask Al Gore, John Kerry and (wait for it) John Edwards. Of the top tier candidates, I think only Hillary Clinton understands this at a molecular level.

And as for Barack Obama, Drew Westen has some advice:

I think a good example of this is the attempts by the right to play on Barack Obama's name by calling him things like B. Hussein Obama. If you understand how the brain works, you understand that the more times people hear "B. Hussein Obama," the more they think, "He's foreign, he's Islamic, and he sounds like Osama," and the more they develop emotional associations between Obama and all of those things that they don't like.

And this is before he even says a damn thing! What could be worse? Ignoring that BS or just smiling and shrugging it off as...silly or irrelevant. Bad idea.

So a way that Obama could handle that that would address any masculinity issues that are raised against him, any national security issues that are raised against him as well as the implicit or unconscious, sort of stealth racist appeals that are involved in those comments ... is to say to Ann Coulter, who calls him B. Hussein Obama all the time, "Listen, my name is Barack Obama, and I expect to be called that. I call you Ann Coulter. My name is not B. Hussein Obama, my name is not Osama, it is Barack Obama, and you will address me that way."

Now imagine if Barack Obama spoke like that. Immediately people would say, "Wow, this is one tough son of a bitch. We'd better not mess with him." If you want to talk about winning the center, that's how you win the center if you're Barack Obama. It's not by saying, "Let's get along with Ann Coulter." It's by saying, "Ann Coulter, you will not talk to me that way. You will not talk about me that way. This is my name."

Not to belabor the point about a black man with an Islamic sounding name, but this reminds me of Muhammad Ali's response to Ernie Terrell in their 1967 heavyweight championship fight. Terrell, who insisted on calling Ali "Cassius Clay" long after he had changed his name, was mercilessly whupped -- and taunted -- by the champ. "What's my name, fool? What's my name?" Ali kept yelling, as he pounded him to a bloody pulp in the ring. "What's my name, fool?" Pow! "What's my name?"

That's what I'm talkin bout.