Don't think about a Muslim

The Hartford Courant engaged in a neat bit of rhetorical trickery in a print editorial this morning titled, What's In a Name.

Intentional, or unintentional, the editorial has the same effect as the words of the people it endeavors to scold.

The editorial condemns the use of Barack Obama's middle name as a way for right-wing and Republican critics to imply that he's a Muslim, and worse still, to imply that there's something wrong with being a Muslim, especially one with the same name as a former Iraqui dictator.

In the print edition, the very editorial which condemns the repeated use of his middle name, prints the middle name boldly in a sub-head, and then repeats it, in the body copy of the editorial in ALL CAPS, twice in the lead to the editorial.

It's like the old party trick where someone says: "Don't think of a hippopotamus." Of course, after that's said, you can think of nothing but a hippo.

What's going on in the Courant's editorial department on the weekend?

UPDATE

To make matters worse, WTIC-AM morning show host Ray Dunaway was talking about the editorial on-air, and complaining, that he didn't understand the big deal being made over the name, because after all it is Barack Obama's real middle name. He also said, "I wouldn't use it," and then proceeded in the course of three minutes, to use the middle name six times.