Mr. Mister

Listening to CSPAN radio, as I am often wont to do, I flinched at White House press monkey
Ari Flischer calling a reporter “Elizabeth.” Not “Mrs. x” or “Ms Y.” The trend of public informality
in politics has gone on far too long. Just once, when some smarmy Southern sonofabitch says to his
debate opponent “call me Jim,” I want the other guy to say “and you can call me Mr.
Suchandsuch.”

Politics isn’t about backslapping friends and informality; or rather, it totally is, but the public
shouldn’t know about it. Why are we on a first-name basis with those who should be figures of
authority and public confidence, linguistically reducing them to Joe next door? The practice reeks
of that sickening political tactic of “everymanism,” where the people who have the power to make and
break lives want to appear as innocuous and ineffectual as, well, you.

Fuck that. You can call me Mister Payne.