Ebonyjet.com What We Should Be Calling Our New President

Mr. President? Mr. Obama? Obama? Dude?
What We Should Be Calling Our New President

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

By Del Walters

It seems difficult for some to grasp the fact that the 44th President of United States is somehow different than the other 43.  As a result, for the first time in presidential history, there seems to be confusion as to what he should be called. Who can forget the famous moment in Campaign 2008 when John McCain referred to Barack Obama as “that one.” He apologized, but the damage was done.  It was taken as, and should have been, a slight against his opponent.

Somehow ‘that one’ won. Now ‘that one’  Barack Hussein Obama is the 44th President of the United States, and the same people who had difficulty figuring out what to call him are at it again.  They seem to strain with calling him what he is, ‘President Barack Obama’.

We should not believe that all of this is innocent.  The first President Bush had trouble pronouncing the name of his nemesis Saddam Hussein. According to the University of Washington, “Putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable, experts say the first President Bush also converted the meaning of the name in Arabic, from sa-DAM, which means one who confronts, to Sad-um, which means a barefoot beggar.”   At the height of the furor over Minister Louis Farrakhan there was a tendency for pundits to intentionally mispronounce the cleric’s name as “Louie Farra-CAN,” clearly hoping to devalue his standing through informality.

Nothing in Washington happens in a vacuum, or for that matter, by accident. Remember the campaign when much was written about calling Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama?  The hard right saw an opportunity to paint the democratic candidate as some sort of ‘Muslim sleeper,’ who was going to take over the United States by raising hundreds of millions of dollars and somehow winning the election. AS As a result, many bought into the myth that somehow Barack Obama was evil.  If you don’t believe me, just tune in to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity on any given day and listen to the callers who still believe that President Barack Obama is anything but Christian. 

To be certain, the erosion of formality in Washington is nothing new.  When I first arrived in this town, almost three decades ago, Senators and other members of Congress routinely referred to themselves as ‘The distinguished gentleman’ from their particular state of origin.  When the tone became nastier, the protocols disappeared as well.   When women began getting elected ‘the distinguished gentleman’ became ‘Senator,’ and in some cases, just the person’s last name.

Miss Manners, the bible on all things proper, explains why the founding fathers chose to call the man who sits in the White House, Mr. President:

“Mr. President,” they thought, had devised the ultimate in casual forms of official address. In contrast to the sycophantic titles used toward European monarchs, which they considered unbefitting a republic of equals, this would give the person holding the highest office no grander an honorific than any ordinary citizen.

George Washington had a different approach. “His High and Mightiness” had rather a nice ring to it, he ventured to suggest. However, ridicule carried the day…and when the first President left office, he made a concession to the American taste for simplicity by decreeing that he would, henceforth, no longer carry the title of President, not even as a mere courtesy.

There could only be one President of the United States at a time, he reasoned, as our newest President also observed during the transition period. But there could be more than one American General, so George Washington let it be known that he would revert to his previously held title and should be addressed as General Washington. We now have four living former Presidents addressing one another as Mr. President, and a citizenry worried that it would be disrespectful to follow George Washington’s rule.”

She continues: “Here, then, is a brief Protocol Primer. The sitting President should be addressed as Mr. President.”
The Associated Press, also weighed in on the issue. In November it declared that: “Effective Thursday at 3 a.m. EST, the AP will use the title and first and family names on first reference: President George W. Bush, not just President Bush; President-elect Barack Obama, not just President-elect Obama; President Nicolas Sarkozy, not just President Sarkozy.”

Which brings us to the issue at hand.  Listen to any Sunday morning talk show, and you will hear the President addressed in a variety of manners, Obama, Mister Obama, but rarely ‘President’ Obama.  It should be noted that the majority of those who are experiencing difficulties with the title often appear from the republican side of the aisle.

Coincidence?

So what are we talking about here?  In a nutshell, respect, or as Aretha so poetically put it,  R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  It is an insult to both the office and the man not to get his title right, and as African Americans we have every right to be upset with anything less than the formality both deserve.

After all, Sojourner Truth, (not “Truth”) struggled for this day, as did the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and not King, or Malcolm X and not just X.  People, white and black, bled and died in the struggle for racial equality in this country and soldiers fought and died on battlefields to preserve it.

It is one thing to mispronounce the names of our enemies, but quite another to mispronounce the names of our leaders. There is only one explanation. Those who are doing the mispronouncing have it backwards.  “Those ones” are the ones we should be concerned about.

rs. There is only one explanation. Those who are doing the mispronouncing have it backwards.  “Those ones” are the ones we should be concerned about.

It seems difficult for some to grasp the fact that the 44th President of United States is somehow different than the other 43.  As a result, for the first time in presidential history, there seems to be confusion as to what he should be called. Who can forget the famous moment in Campaign 2008 when John McCain referred to Barack Obama as “that one.” He apologized, but the damage was done.  It was taken as, and should have been, a slight against his opponent.

Somehow ‘that one’ won. Now ‘that one’  Barack Hussein Obama is the 44th President of the United States, and the same people who had difficulty figuring out what to call him are at it again.  They seem to strain with calling him what he is, ‘President Barack Obama’.

We should not believe that all of this is innocent.  The first President Bush had trouble pronouncing the name of his nemesis Saddam Hussein. According to the University of Washington, “Putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable, experts say the first President Bush also converted the meaning of the name in Arabic, from sa-DAM, which means one who confronts, to Sad-um, which means a barefoot beggar.”   At the height of the furor over Minister Louis Farrakhan there was a tendency for pundits to intentionally mispronounce the cleric’s name as “Louie Farra-CAN,” clearly hoping to devalue his standing through informality.

Nothing in Washington happens in a vacuum, or for that matter, by accident. Remember the campaign when much was written about calling Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama?  The hard right saw an opportunity to paint the democratic candidate as some sort of ‘Muslim sleeper,’ who was going to take over the United States by raising hundreds of millions of dollars and somehow winning the election. AS As a result, many bought into the myth that somehow Barack Obama was evil.  If you don’t believe me, just tune in to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity on any given day and listen to the callers who still believe that President Barack Obama is anything but Christian. 

To be certain, the erosion of formality in Washington is nothing new.  When I first arrived in this town, almost three decades ago, Senators and other members of Congress routinely referred to themselves as ‘The distinguished gentleman’ from their particular state of origin.  When the tone became nastier, the protocols disappeared as well.   When women began getting elected ‘the distinguished gentleman’ became ‘Senator,’ and in some cases, just the person’s last name.

Miss Manners, the bible on all things proper, explains why the founding fathers chose to call the man who sits in the White House, Mr. President:

“Mr. President,” they thought, had devised the ultimate in casual forms of official address. In contrast to the sycophantic titles used toward European monarchs, which they considered unbefitting a republic of equals, this would give the person holding the highest office no grander an honorific than any ordinary citizen.

George Washington had a different approach. “His High and Mightiness” had rather a nice ring to it, he ventured to suggest. However, ridicule carried the day…and when the first President left office, he made a concession to the American taste for simplicity by decreeing that he would, henceforth, no longer carry the title of President, not even as a mere courtesy.

There could only be one President of the United States at a time, he reasoned, as our newest President also observed during the transition period. But there could be more than one American General, so George Washington let it be known that he would revert to his previously held title and should be addressed as General Washington. We now have four living former Presidents addressing one another as Mr. President, and a citizenry worried that it would be disrespectful to follow George Washington’s rule.”

She continues: “Here, then, is a brief Protocol Primer. The sitting President should be addressed as Mr. President.”
The Associated Press, also weighed in on the issue. In November it declared that: “Effective Thursday at 3 a.m. EST, the AP will use the title and first and family names on first reference: President George W. Bush, not just President Bush; President-elect Barack Obama, not just President-elect Obama; President Nicolas Sarkozy, not just President Sarkozy.”

Which brings us to the issue at hand.  Listen to any Sunday morning talk show, and you will hear the President addressed in a variety of manners, Obama, Mister Obama, but rarely ‘President’ Obama.  It should be noted that the majority of those who are experiencing difficulties with the title often appear from the republican side of the aisle.

Coincidence?

So what are we talking about here?  In a nutshell, respect, or as Aretha so poetically put it,  R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  It is an insult to both the office and the man not to get his title right, and as African Americans we have every right to be upset with anything less than the formality both deserve.

After all, Sojourner Truth, (not “Truth”) struggled for this day, as did the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and not King, or Malcolm X and not just X.  People, white and black, bled and died in the struggle for racial equality in this country and soldiers fought and died on battlefields to preserve it.

It is one thing to mispronounce the names of our enemies, but quite another to mispronounce the names of our leaders. There is only one explanation. Those who are doing the mispronouncing have it backwards.  “Those ones” are the ones we should be concerned about.