People thought Obama having the middle name "Hussein" would hurt him a bit in any 2008 bid, and some GOP consultants have even taken to calling him that. This leads into an amusing anecdote from a recent Maureen Dowd column:
"f you call Barack Obama’s office to check the spelling of his middle name, the reply comes back: “Like the dictator.”I think that's what they call "hanging a lantern on the problem." Posted by Stephen Silver at December 4, 2006 01:56 PM