I AGREE WITH J.! I'd like to see liberal bloggers everywhere, whoever they support for the Democratic presidential nomination, take up one of my crusades, which J. Goodrich alluded to earlier: that the senator from New York who recently announced her presidential candidacy should always be referred to, without exception, as "Senator Clinton." I've been diligently trying to follow this rule for about a year, in conversation as well as in writing, even in conversation with people who know the senator well enough to refer to her by her first name. It's about as easy as trying to never split an infinitive. Sure, her campaigns encourage it, but to me the first-naming reeks of the over-familiarity that was part of the casual denigration of her and President Clinton. I'm not a formal person, but I don't refer to Senator Biden as Joe or Senator Dodd as Chris and I don't think Hillla -- I mean, Senator Clinton should be any different. It's about respect, not just for her stature, but for her accomplishments. Perhaps someone should set up an online equivalent of the jar that people sometimes have where they have to put in a quarter every time they swear -- put some money in every time you refer to the senator by her first name, and then put all the money to a good netroots cause. (Of course, we'd probably make even more money off the swearing thing, being "foul-mouthed bloggers" after all.) And perhaps in exchange we can get an ironclad promise from Senator Clinton and her people that, if elected, she will never, ever let herself be called "44." Let's retire that business along with the Bushes.
--Mark Schmitt
