Middle of the road? Not when it comes to the middle name…

I had occasion to make a passing reference to "George W. Bush" and "Barack Hussein Obama" in this column recently, for which it was suggested in a back-handed manner that I had a nefarious motive.

"Frank, why did you find it necessary to include Mr. Obama's full middle name but only Mr. Bush's middle initial?" wrote Ahzi, who is known to use my entire name as a curse word from time to time. "You just can't help it, can you?"

Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I could help it. The whole idea of good writing is to use the correct word at the correct time. I chose to use the names in that manner for a very logical reason that had nothing to do with Ahzi's apparent worry about President Obama's Islamic or African background.

I seriously doubt there is any voting-age citizen who will be sober enough to vote in the next election who does not already know that President Obama was named after his Kenyan father. A few more may have missed the fact that his father was a Muslim, but so what? Are we supposed to pretend that Obama is Irish to protect the ignorant from the truth?

As I noted in my online response to Ahzi, "I chose those names for our presidents because I believe that is what they will be known as by history. Bush has never been known as 'Walker' but as 'W.' (I had to look up his middle name to even be sure what it was.) With Obama, it is a gamble, but I would say the cadences of Barack Hussein Obama will overcome any cultural resistance from anti-Islamics."

Ahzi was not assuaged and wrote back, "…[Y]our defense of using Obama's middle name holds no water. YOU included it for purely political reasons… John Quincy Adams is so remembered as to differentiate him from John Adams. Otherwise, 'history' rarely, if ever, 'remembers' a president's middle name."

Another reader known as MT101 finally weighed in with yet another argument against using middle names of presidents:

"George W. Bush is known with the W. because of his father. But most of our previous presidents are just known by first and last name, only. Bill Clinton? Ronald Reagan? I have no idea what their middle names are, because no one refers to them that way."

I guess it could be a generational difference. When I grew up, we always knew and used our living or recently departed presidents' middle names. (The exception? Harry S Truman, because the S didn't stand for anything!) It was always Lyndon BAINES Johnson, John FITZGERALD Kennedy, Dwight DAVID Eisenhower, Richard MILHOUS Nixon, Franklin DELANO Roosevelt.

Yep, Jimmy Carter was an exception (probably because EARL doesn't sound that good with Jimmy), and so was Gerald Ford (but Ford was a much bigger exception in that he was never elected as either president or vice president). Reagan was known as Ronald WILSON Reagan to plenty of people, but not all. Then Bush the First came along with his HERBERT WALKER and threw everything into a tizzy. Too many middle names spoil the headline.

Still, Bill Clinton was known as William JEFFERSON Clinton whenever anyone used his formal name, not simply as William Clinton. Which brings us to George W. and Barack (oops, can't say it) Obama. Make of it what you will, this cultural skirmish, but I think it is all a little silly. So apparently does President Obama, who chose to be sworn in with his entire name intact and recently referred to it in Cairo, of all places. Yep, I think the cat is out of the bag.

So let the poor man have his middle name. Most of us don't get to use them unless we are celebrities, pageant winners or presidents. Looks too pretentious, I guess. I'm not famous enough to call myself Frank DANIEL Miele, for instance. But for presidents it should be an honor of rank. So let's take a deep breath and say it all at once - Barack HUSSEIN Obama. (There I go again!)

It's really not any scarier than plain old Barack Obama (if you are inclined to being easily frightened), but what is really scary is just how few of our citizens under the age of 30 can even identify the last 12 presidents by first and last name, let alone middle ones.