Crazies doing best to smear Obama

So that's how it's going to be. I was wondering what slur the lunatic fringe was going to try to nail onto Barack Obama, and with his quasi-official presidential bid only a few days old, now we know: He's going to be the Manchurian Candidate.

Taking a page from the playbook of the Swift Boat Veterans, who neatly managed to turn John Kerry's wartime heroism into a liability, Obama's multi-ethnic, multi-national background, so appealing to Americans who are not nuts, provides plenty of grist for conspiracy theorists, only this time it is Islamic mullahs instead of Chinese Communists pulling the candidate's strings.

If that seems unbelievably ham-handed, a reader directs me to the Web site of something called the North Carolina Independent Media Center, whose profile of "Barack Hussein Obama" identifies him as a secret Muslim and ends this way:

"Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Osama [sic] was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta.

"Wahabism is the radical teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world.

"Since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background.

"Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy."

Note the accidental shift from "Obama" to "Osama" in one reference and the dropping of his last name altogether so he becomes the ooo-scary "Barack Hussein" in another.

We in the cosmopolitan Chicago area might not realize how eagerly they lap up this sort of drivel in the intellectual wastelands between the cities. Sometimes you have to wonder why a man would want to be president of this madhouse.

My guess is that the average parents of the average 15-year-old wonders where the child they once had has gone, and despair at how they are going to live with this new person they are confronted with. At least at times.

That has to be triple true for Craig and Pam Akers, the parents of Shawn Hornbeck, the kidnapped Missouri boy, whose readjustment to home life is just beginning.

I don't blame Oprah Winfrey for putting the family on national television -- that's what she does, and if they showed up here at the paper, we'd probably start asking them questions, too.

One question I'd have is what they were thinking going on her program at all. I see how it's good for Oprah, and understand that anybody in Missouri would welcome a trip to Chicago under almost any circumstances.

But to go on TV less than a week after he got home and speculate about how my child might have been sexually abused for years by this 300-pound pizza guy but-gee-I-really-don't-know-Oprah because we haven't talked about it yet. . . . My God. I'd like to think that most parents would prefer to stick their hand in a flame.

Activists often have an uncanny way of perpetuating the very stereotypes they claim to be fighting, and unwittingly presenting a more negative image of their group than the supposed slurs they are fighting against.

Take Native Americans outraged over Chief Illiniwek, the beleaguered Indian mascot of the University of Illinois.

Now, I've gone on record in the past saying that the university should dump the chief, not out of any particular concern for the bruised feelings of activists -- a vindictive, joyless lot, I can tell you, based on personal experience. But just because the chief has become a perennial liability, as a logo, and when your brand is dragging business down instead of promoting it, it's time to get rid of the mascot or at the very least take the kerchief off of Aunt Jemimah.

Myself, I think they should change the chief into a cowboy: Cowboy Bob. He could do a lariat demonstration before games. The kids would love it.

Though getting rid of the chief will help the image of Native Americans. Not by removing the dance, which strikes me as rather benign. But rather by muting the protests, which inevitably cast Indians in a harsher light than the thing they are complaining about.

The grandson of the chief who sold his ceremonial outfit to the university is now demanding they give it back, even though the school paid $3,500 for it. There is an obvious echo of the old cliche about . . . you know what, I'm not even going to go there.

Congratulations to my poker buddy Abdon Pallasch and his wife, Deirdre, on the arrival of Niamh Sarah Pallasch, born Thursday, nine days past due but only five minutes after the understandably harried couple arrived at Swedish Covenant Hospital.

Now my Gaelic is a little rusty, but I am told that the "mh" is Niamh is pronounced like a "V" -- too bad, as I was hoping it was pronounced like an "L." Anyway, she is loosed upon the world and, if Abdon is any indication, the world is in for a treat. Best wishes to one and all.

I don't know if Lovers Lanes still exist, but there still are Lovers Lane jokes. This one is from Larry Brody:

A cop was patrolling late at night. In a well-known spot he saw a couple in a car.

The cop carefully approached to get a better look. He saw a young man in the back seat with a young woman. The man was reading a magazine. The woman was sitting next to him, knitting.

Puzzled, the cop gently rapped on the window. The young man lowered it.

"Yes, officer?"

"What are you two doing?" the cop asked.

"Well, officer, I'm reading a magazine."

Pointing toward the young woman, the cop asked, "And what is she doing?"

The young man glanced over. "Knitting a sweater."

The cop stepped back, confused, and scratched his head.

"How old are you?" he finally asked.

"I'm 22, sir."

"And how old is she?"

The young man looked at his watch. "She'll be 18 in . . . 11 minutes."