Federal Judiciary

It was the president?s calling all the congressmen and senators by their first names.
 
It is easy to appreciate just how demeaning this was to each House member and senator: Just imagine if any of them had called President Obama ?Barack.?

However negative any conservative deems this presidency, we would consider it scandalous if anyone publicly referred to this or any president by his first name. For America?s sake, I do not want the office of the presidency or the president himself to be demeaned.

Likewise, for America?s sake I do not want the office of representative or senator demeaned.

Yet that is exactly what Barack Obama did. At one of the most widely watched dialogues between members of Congress and a president in American history, Barack Obama lowered the dignity of the men and women who serve in those capacities.

That this has largely gone unnoted -- and, I presume, will be widely dismissed as trivial -- is more a statement about the culture of our times than it is about the mainstream media?s unwillingness to criticize this president.

Other presidents and members of Congress have publicly referred to members of Congress by their first names on occasion (though this, too, is relatively new and wrong), but rarely in as formal, prolonged, and public a setting as the health-care summit.

Why did the president do this? Why did he choose to call the most prominent members of the House of Representatives and Senate -- and a member of his cabinet -- by their first names while he was only referred to as ?Mr. President??

One reason was to place himself on a higher and qualitatively different plane than everyone else at the summit. The summit became a meeting between the president of the United States and the boys and girls showing him deference. Anyone who disputes this needs to explain why the president did not ask to be called ?Barack? and why no one called by his or her first name responded by doing the same to the president.

A second reason, one that only theoretically conflicts with the first, is that this president is a man of the left to the depths of his soul and therefore has egalitarian instincts. Consequently, he likely thinks that there is something uncomfortably reminiscent of class-based titles about referring to people by their honorifics; and conversely there is something charming about publicly calling senators, representatives, and cabinet members by their first names.

A third and related reason is the egalitarian spirit that has pervaded American society since the 1960s and ?70s. Obvious examples of relationships into which casual address has intruded include students and their teachers, young people and adults, and congregants and their clergymen. In almost every case, there has been a loss of prestige to the person and to the profession (yes, adulthood is a profession), and a corresponding loss to society.

In 28 years of radio, I have never called any interviewee who had a title by his or her first name. A psychiatrist who teaches at the UCLA School of Medicine has been on my show a number of times. Though he has been one of my closest friends for more than 20 years, I have always addressed him as ?Dr. Marmer? on the radio, never ?Steve.? Likewise all the rabbis, priests, and ministers with whom I am friends are all ?rabbi,? ?father,? and ?pastor? when I address them in public.

Some will argue that this was precisely what Sen. Barbara Boxer was saying when she said to Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh, who was testifying before a senate committee, ?Could you say ?senator? instead of ?ma?am??? And therefore anyone who ridiculed her for that comment cannot now complain that President Obama failed to call senators and congressmen by their titles.

But the argument has no merit. General Walsh never called Senator Boxer ?Barbara.? If he had, it would have been scandalous. He called her ?ma?am,? which is how members of the military (and many others) show people respect -- like addressing a man as ?sir.?

The issue, in any event, is publicly addressing people with titles by their first names -- especially when the one doing it must be addressed by his title. Even if President Obama had used ?Mr.? or ?Ms.? or ?Mrs.,? it would have been acceptable.

Perhaps the president thought that Americans would appreciate that he is so friendly with all these congressmen and senators -- even the Republicans -- that he calls them all by their first names. If so, he seriously miscalculated. If he did not object to ?Mr. President,? he had no right to drop ?senator? and ?congressman.?

But, as noted, President Obama is a man of the left. And the cultural Left does not particularly like ?Mr.? or ?Mrs.? or ?pastor? or ?rabbi? -- or ?senator? or ?congressman.? And if you don?t believe that this is a right-left distinction, read right and left reactions to this column.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on March 02, 2010 (boomark / email).