Way back in The When, at the beginning of the presidential primary season when it seemed like every politician who had a pulse decided the run for the office, the question arose, "Who is this Obama fellow?" My favorite answer to the question—and this is real, I swear—was that he was a nice Irish fellow cut from the same liberal cloth as a previous generation's nice Irish fellow.
Irish. As in O'Bama. For a brief moment, I wondered if I was spelling his name wrong and that the apostrophe was actually some sort of glottal stop like in the word Hawai'i. Thankfully, the moment passed.
I can only think that these poor mistaken folks, deep in their conservative closet, were so shocked that a man of mix-raced lineage would dare enter the campaign that they clung to their error for comfort. Did they also misconstrue the rest of his name? Did they hear it as Patrick Seamus O'Bama? Oy.
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