Not Uday or Qusay, sons of Saddam Hussein. They’re dead. George Bush is meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, the son of the late U.S. ally, King Hussein of Jordan.

Sorry for the chicanery but the headline of this story is meant to illustrate the point that “Hussein” is as common a name in the Middle East is “Henry” is in the West.

Because Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein, Republicans have been trying their best to associate the name Hussein with Saddam Hussein in order to ramp up fear that Obama is a Muslim.

Obama is Christian.

The topic of the meeting between King Abdullah and Bush will be Bush’s last-minute efforts to bring peace to the Middle East, which Middle East experts see as all futile:

Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, said that key players in the region are moving beyond the Bush administration. “The feeling is that if you keep the flash points on a lower or somewhat higher flame, it will give you more cards when a new administration comes in,” he said, speaking in a phone interview from Israel. “Everyone is sucking up to the Iranians,” he added.

The signs of American irrelevance are apparent throughout the region. Even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, hailed as a potential peacemaker by the Bush administration, mused last week to the Jordanian newspaper al-Dustour that in the future it might be necessary to return to armed struggle against Israel. And Syria, which received an unexpected invitation to Annapolis, believes that the peace summit was “an exercise in public relations” and that Bush has no interest in peace, as Syria’s ambassador to Washington, Imad Moustapha put it last week.

Ironically, Bush and his top officials heaped scorn on Pres. Bill Clinton for trying to bring about a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict in his last days in office.