Richard Richtmyer, Associated Press Writer, has reported that in New York County voters were sent absentee ballots that listed Barack Obama’s name incorrectly.

Richtmyer went on to say, “In the United States, the best-known individual named Osama is Osama bin Laden, leader of the al Qaida terrorist group behind the 2001 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City.

I think this is part of a wider smear campaign to try and get the news media focused on Obama as a man with Middle East connections. This is another attempt for headlines to direct voters to making connections that Obama might be a terrorist or come from terrorist descent, whatever that should means.

Chris Matthews, MSNBC’s host of the great show Hardball, has been talking about this attempt from John McCain’s lackeys to portray the Democratic Candidate as an untrustworthy candidate that is shrouded in Mystery.

These moves to connect Obama to Osama are typical white race construct that can be traced back to the Jim Crow era. This stereotype is that a black man is dark and mysterious and can be trusted to run the country.

Another stereotype is the Barack’s Middle name, Hussein, which has nothing to do with terrorism but more to do with being named after his father, a black man from Kenya.
Just because we hung Saddam Hussein doesn’t mean that the millions of people that name are connected to terrorism somehow is absurd.

In Polling News, Barack Obama had an all time lead in the Presidential election polling by 11%, 52% to 41%, according to Gallup. Wow, I was impressed as Obama wins the second Presidential Debate at Belmont University.