Shirin sent me this (I cite with her permission): "FYI, As`ad, I spent the month of April in the Middle East (Amman for a couple of days, Lebanon for about four days, Syria for the rest of the month), and had MANY discussions about Obama with everyone from university professors to retired U.N. employees, to TV soap opera writers to hotel owners to journalists to suq merchants to taxi drivers (more taxi drivers and suq merchants than any other single group), and NOT ONE of them mentioned his middle name AT ALL. I was, of course, completely shocked! I thought their main focus would be his middle name, and yet they mostly focused on what they thought his policies were or might be. How surprising coming from Arabs! And they really must have liked me because not one of them threw a shoe at me!"