THE TELEGRAPH: Republicans have begun to emphasise Barack Obama's middle name Hussein in an attempt to spread doubts about his patriotism and raise fears among voters that he is a closet Muslim.
The unofficial smear campaign is a foretaste of what the Illinois senator would face if he becomes the Democratic Party's candidate for November's presidential election.
This week the Tennessee Republican party issued a press release with the headline "anti-Semites for Obama", which claimed that "a growing chorus of Americans [are] concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States".
The release said that Mr Obama had pledged to set up a "Muslim summit", referring to his idea of holding a Middle Eastern meeting.
It also tried to link the senator to Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam, as well as to fundraising events for alleged pro-Palestinian extremists.
The release was illustrated by a picture that began circulating on the internet a few days ago of Mr Obama dressed in ethnic Somali garb, which he wore on an official visit to Kenya.
Mr Obama's father was Kenyan and his mother was a white woman from Kansas. He spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, a largely Muslim country.
"My grandfather, who was Kenyan, converted to Christianity, then converted to Islam," he explained recently. "My father never practised; he was basically agnostic. So, other than my name and the fact that I lived in a populous Muslim country for four years when I was a child, I have very little connection to the Islamic religion," added Mr Obama, who began worshipping at the Trinity United Church in Chicago 20 years ago.
Right-wing broadcasters such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter have, however, regularly use his middle name, while never openly stressing its obvious echo of the nation's greatest recent enemy, Saddam Hussein. Name calling campaign to undermine Obama >>> By Alex Spillius in Austin
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
