I got a reminder last week that Barack Obama is bound to lose votes because of largely imagined links to Islam. I was speaking about bias in the media at the luncheon of the Balboa Bay Republican Women, Federated, and there was one table that wanted to know why the press didn’t use Obama’s middle name, Hussein.

I asked if anybody could tell me John McCain’s middle name.

“That’s not the point,” was the response. “It’s what ‘Hussein’ symbolizes.”

Others members made it clear to me after the event that they didn’t share the views tying Obama to Islam, but I find it noteworthy that a faction of these politically engaged, generally well-educated women did make it an issue.

I was also asked why the media didn’t report on Obama’s Islamic education — and those asking weren’t satisfied by may response: As a child, Obama attended public school in Indonesia.

It was not the controversial “madrassa” religious schools associated with radical Islam. Here’s CNN’s report on the issue.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 10:07 am and is filed under Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.