except with the wingers. Obama's dad is from Kenya and with a name like Barak Obama just what do you do about a middle name.
Seriously, the smearing already started before. On Washington Journal a few days ago some guy calls and claims he is a muslim (which he is not) and I can only attribute it to one of the reich's talk heads.
I saw Harkin's steak fry and all those Iowa white people acting like he's the greatest thing and begging him to run. It was amazing to see. And since I'm here in Illinois, we are those Iowa types.

Maybe it's been posted before

Saddam or Mr Hussein?

Blair Shewchuk

CBC News Online - Iraq's leader has been called plenty of names over the years: evil liar, ruthless dictator, global menace, the Butcher of Baghdad, His Excellency, President for Life, Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, and the Anointed One.

But for those who prefer real names to slurs or lofty titles, what's the best approach?

Saddam Hussein is fine the first time he's mentioned in a news story. But what do you write after that? Saddam? Hussein? Both? If you pick one over the other, is there a reason?

The CBC has received phone calls from some people who think that the name "Saddam" on its own is inappropriate. "Why do you say, 'Bush doesn't like Saddam'?" one person asked our audience relations department. "Don't treat Saddam Hussein with this lack of respect."

We've also got e-mail about our use of "Saddam." Here's a recent query:

I was wondering why CBC often refers to President Saddam Hussein as "Saddam Hussein" and more commonly as "Saddam" while President George W. Bush is often referred to as "President Bush" or as "Bush" but never as "George."
Is there a reason they are referred to differently?

Kind regards,

E. Damián Londynski Di Caro
Ottawa

Some media organizations do call Saddam Hussein Hussein. Many, however, prefer Saddam. There's no consensus on how to handle his name, but there are some explanations for the inconsistency.

IT'S ARABIC, NOT CHINESE

Some people use "Saddam" because they assume it's his "family" name. They think it's akin to the Chinese practice of putting one's genealogy first – for instance, Deng Xiaoping becomes "Deng" in second and subsequent references.

But in Arabic, the last name in the sequence is generally chosen to identify someone's heritage. So Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri is known as "Sabri," and the country's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz is referred to as "Aziz."

Following this convention, then, "Hussein" would appear to stand out as the obvious choice, and a few large papers have embraced it, including the Globe and Mail, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal.

It's also the path taken by some encyclopedias, including Britannica and Columbia.

But there's more to it than that. Which leads us to why many of the western world's biggest news organizations have chosen "Saddam" instead, including the Associated Press, Reuters, and the BBC. In this country, most media outlets appear to have adopted the same approach, including the Canadian Press, Toronto Star, National Post, Maclean's, and the CBC.

S.H.A.M.A.T.

Hussein is not Saddam's family name. It's actually his father's given name. This is a common Arabic tradition, which is why terms like "son of" (ibn or bin, depending on the country) and "father of" (abu) are sometimes part of a person's identification.

His full name is something close to Saddam Hussein al-Majid al-Tikriti, depending on the Middle Eastern authorities you consult. Taken apart, it really means that he is "Saddam, son of Hussein al-Majid, part of the al-Tikriti tribe."

To complicate matters, the closest term to what westerners would consider a "family" name is not actually represented here. Technically, it would be "al-Khatab," which is the designation of his clan, whose members belong to the larger al-Tikriti tribe. Tikriti, by the way, represents a geographical location – the town of Tikrit along the Tigris River about 160 kilometres north of Baghdad, not far from the village where Saddam was born.

It should be pointed out that there are often many spellings of all these words, since they are English transliterations of Arabic. For instance, Hussein is also commonly written as Husayn – a variation noted by many authorities, including the 2002 Britannica, and preferred by some publications like the Middle East Quarterly. Canada's Foreign Affairs Department uses both versions on its Web site.

TRIBAL NAMES BANNED

Why don't people skip his first name and his father's first name and move on to something with deeper roots in the past?

When Iraq's Baath Socialist Party first came to power in 1968, with Saddam Hussein as vice-president, it outlawed the use of tribal names. Citizens were told that they owed their loyalty to the state and its president instead of to a local tribe and its chief. Some believe there was another reason for the ban. As Neil MacFarquhar pointed out in a Jan. 5, 2003, article in the New York Times, critics feel the policy was actually designed to disguise the large number of Saddam's clan in the government.

Regardless of the reason, the man who would eventually take over his country – and set about to build what would become one of the world's largest armies by the late 1980s – was suddenly known simply as Saddam Hussein.

JUST CALL ME 'SADDAM'

When the Persian Gulf War began in January 1991, CBC foreign correspondent Patrick Brown wanted to gauge how people felt about their leader as bombs were being dropped on their country. Virtually no journalists were left in Baghdad. He got a translator in Amman to monitor Iraqi radio signals. "Saddam," the Jordanian man concluded, "is considered a hero."

This brings us to the first, and primary, reason many newsrooms use "Saddam" – it's how he's known throughout Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.

With clan and tribal terms eliminated, a name had to be picked from the two remaining choices (Saddam or Hussein), and Iraq's ruler endorsed the first. Virtually everyone in the region knows him by this name, not by "Hussein," and he encourages its use – cultivating a sort of Grand Uncle persona to go with some of his other roles, including Direct Descendant of the Prophet.

The BBC, for instance, noted that before Saddam's last "election" victory in October 2002 – there were no other candidates – telephone dial tones were replaced in many areas with the campaign slogan "Naam, naam, Saddam" (Yes, yes, Saddam), followed by a recorded message: "Saddam is the pride of my country."

Some journalists have reported that many Iraqis refer to their leader as "Mr. President" or "His Excellency" in the presence of foreigners. But others have found that ordinary people frequently use his first name, Saddam – "either with affection or derision," as Globe and Mail writers Stephanie Nolen and Timothy Appleby put it in a profile last fall. Their newspaper, as mentioned, calls him "Mr. Hussein" instead.

ROYAL CONFUSION

The second reason many media outlets use "Saddam" is habit, based on a practice that some argue was initially useful.

Years ago western journalists discovered that by adopting the local Iraqi custom of using the leader's first name they could readily distinguish him from another well known "Hussein" in the area – the king of Jordan. What initially began as a happy convenience became entrenched.

Not everyone cared about the Hussein headache. Even though King Hussein was alive during the 1991 Gulf War, some newsrooms steadfastly avoided using "Saddam" because it was his given name. Canada's two biggest newspapers illustrate this point:

On Wednesday, Jan. 16, 1991, the Globe and Mail's top headline was about a final appeal by the UN secretary general: "Perez de Cuellar gives Hussein guarantee against attack if he withdraws immediately." At the bottom of the front-page, a second headline read: "Hussein's biggest weapon could be American people." The next day, the Toronto Star ran the banner headline "IT'S WAR" and then below it wrote "Saddam spotted at Baghdad TV centre."

Both papers have held on to their preferences during the past decade. Although the Globe now puts "Saddam" in the odd headline – for instance, "Saddam's bark and bite" across page F1 of the Nov. 16, 2002, edition – it continues to use "Mr. Hussein" in the body of all news stories. The honorific "Mr." before Hussein, by the way, appears in a few other publications (such as the New York Times) that share a relatively formal style and tone of writing.
more at link

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Husayn, Hussein (Arabic:حسین), is an Arabic name which is the diminuitive of Hasan, meaning "good" or "handsome". It is commonly given as a male given name among Muslims, after Husayn ibn Ali.

people named Husayn include:

Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad
Hussein of Jordan (1935–1999), former King of Jordan
Hussein el-Husseini (b. 1937), former Lebanese Parliament Speaker
Hussein Kamel (d. 1996), son-in-law of Saddam Hussein
Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca (d. 1931), Sherif and Emir of Mecca
Hussein Onn, (1922–1990), third Prime Minister of Malaysia
Hussein Rushdi Pasha (1863–1928), Prime Minister of Egypt
Hussein Fahmy (1940–), Egyptian actor
Husayn (Safavid), the last powerful Safavid king of Persia
Husayn Bayqarah, Timurid ruler of Herat from 1469 to his death
Husayn Kamil, the Sultan of Egypt and King of The Sudan from December 19, 1914 - October 9, 1917
Hussein Bassir, an Egyptologist and writer
Patronymics:

Mullá Husayn, the first Letter of the Living in the Bábí movement
Ali Akbar ibn Husayn, the son of Shi’as’ third Imam Hussain ibn Ali and Umm-e-Laila
Muhammad Husayn Haykal, Egyptian writer, journalist, politician and a former Minister of Education in Egypt
Tahir ibn Husayn, Persian general and governor during the Abbasid caliphate
M.F. Hussain (1915–), eminent artist from India
Taha Hussein (1889–1973), Egyptian writer and Arabic literary scholar
Ali bin Hussein of Hejaz (1879–1935), King of Hejaz and Grand Sharif of Mecca
Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein (1956–), pretender to the throne of Iraq
Fouad Hussein, Jordanian journalist
Hala Hussein (1979–), daughter of Saddam Hussein
Qusay Hussein (1966–2003), son of Saddam Hussein
Raghad Hussein (1967–), daughter of Saddam Hussein
Rana Hussein (1969–), daughter of Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein (1937–), deposed President of Iraq
Uday Hussein (1964–2003), son of Saddam Hussein
King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein (1962–), the current King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Princess Muna al-Hussein (1941–), the second wife of King Hussein of Jordan
Fatimah bint Husayn
Ali bin Hussein of Jordan (1975–), son of King Hussein of Jordan and his third wife
Alia al Hussein (1948–1977), the third wife of King Hussein of Jordan
Others:
Al Hussein, Iraqi missile
Obama, Barack Hussein, United States Senator

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