Leading the way is NYTimes taking a cue from Colin Powell, they are trying to ease Barack Obama middle name into the normal day to day conversations...
This diary is not long but please let me engage you here...
It has taken 21 months for this phenomenal guy to finally come out and bring Americans together. It is astonishingly astounding that, this is the guy that fate has chosen(or he chose himself) to bring a bitterly divided nation together.
It is to be admitted fairly that his middle name probably evoked an instant reaction that was characterized beginning from something not his fault to something sinister.People who read his mesmerizing and self introspective partial auto-biography "Dreams From My Father" - have probably and rightly concluded that his middle name is something accidental which holds no meaning. On the other extreme, his middle name assumed sinister proportions due to the background of 9/11 and America's enemy Saddam Hussein. Born in the cultural revolutions of the 60's to two atheists, brought up and growing in a myriad of cultural societies - his middle name holds meager significance if none at all compared to his lifetime experiences in these places.
While most of the journalists and reporters are aware of his biography and achievements and rightly reserved not to use his middle name in explicit reporting - they understood the significance it would have on the minds of the populace across America. More recently, his middle name became an attack on the candidate itself - it was invoked again and again at his opponents meetings and rallies to such a point that one of the hare brained candidates used to link it implicitly to the terrorists.
As one proverb says , "To rise is to fall" or "Every thing reaches its ripening" - this time came exactly at the crescendo of these accusations. It came in the endorsement of Colin Powell. Millions across American watched live and watched later - how Powell incisively and patriotically dismantled the stigma associated with this middle name.
Taking this cue from Colin Powell, journalists,opinionators are following the suit by gently inserting his middle name their writings.
Leading this charge is NYTimes which has quietly been inserting his middle name into the conversation. The other reporters who have also been trying to do this were either unsucessful or found trying to attach a comical appendage in their articles whenever they use his middle name or whenever his middle name became news.
Thomas Friedman
Roger Cohen
The people at Times are once again perceptive and most forward looking journalists in the country.
Kudos to you guys...
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