Hillary with 2l's Hillary

Are commenters who refer to Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (senator from New York State, former first lady, and candidate for the 2008 U.S. Democratic nomination) by her first name engaging in "sexism". I keep hearing it, but still don't buy it.

For one thing, if people just say "Clinton", the first name that comes to most minds would be her husband, William Jefferson Clinton, 44th president of the USA. Here in California, most of the media refer to our female high profile politicians by their surnames. You never hear Madame Speaker called "Nancy", it's always "Pelosi". And our senators are always "Feinstein" and "Boxer".

Hillary is different. Nobody ever calls her "Clinton". There are no other famous women named Hillary (especially with 2 l's), so when people hear "Hillary" they usually think of Hillary Clinton. Notice that her web site says "Hillary For President" not "Clinton For President". So the cries of "sexism" are completely unfounded. I've probably already used up my quota of "quoted words" for this post!

On the other hand, referring to Hillary's Democratic rival by his full name (Barack Hussein Obama) seems a little heavy-handed. Mostly because it's mostly done by fringe right-wingers who emphasize the middle name ("Ba-rock HOO-SAIN O-Bama") to show how "Muslim" it sounds. Nobody ever refers to other candidates with their middle names. Look at this press release by the Tennesee Republican Party concerned about the future of Israel if "Barack Hussein Obama" is elected president. They also showed a photo of him dressed in "Muslim attire" in a trip to Africa. The only trouble was that the press release was a complete load of BS, forcing them to enter the following "clarification".

This release originally referenced a photo of Sen. Obama and incorrectly termed it to be "Muslim" garb. It is, in fact, Somali tribal garb, hence, we have deleted the photo. Also, in order to diffuse attempts by Democrats and the Left to divert attention from the main point of this release, we have deleted the use of Barack Obama’s middle name.

Translation: We got called on our crap and had to retract it. So in brief: "Hillary" is okay, "Hussein" is not okay. Unless you're talking about the candidates themselves, then it's the other way around.