Can we get back to matters of substance?

Juan Cole does a masterful job of demolishing the crap going around over Obama's name. If you want ammunition against stupidity, he provides a lot of it.

This is a summation, but you will get a real treat if you read it all:

I want to say something about Barack Hussein Obama's name. It is a name to be proud of. It is an American name. It is a blessed name. It is a heroic name, as heroic and American in its own way as the name of General Omar Nelson Bradley or the name of Benjamin Franklin. And denigrating that name is a form of racial and religious bigotry of the most vile and debased sort. It is a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages!

Check it out here.

And if you want a daily source on what is going on in Iraq, drawing on Arabic sources and informed by a professor's knowledge of Middle Eastern history, add Juan's blog, Informed Comment, to your favorite list.
--the BB