Obama bin Hussein

Is it just me, or is the symbolic meaning of the new President's name so rich as to be unmistakable?

So... the USA has waged war - nominally - on two very particular men in the last eight years. Both wars have been unsuccessful, and both have been to some extent in the realm of fantasy - a war on two bogey men: Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden.

So when we are finally sick of those false projections, those weird wars, when we have seen the folly and nuisance of them, when we reject the instigator of those wars, what do we do next? We elect a new leader, a symbol of healing and hope - whose name includes, as near as damn it, the actual names of both our previous 'enemies'. The names of the projected other have been embraced into the body politic, into its very heart. And accepted.

Weird!

You become the thing you oppose
What you resist persists
...they say.

We are the shadow. the shadow is us.
America is healing faster than we could ever imagine.