10 June 2009

naming the president.

One of my responsibilities as the Online Community Producer is to keep watch over the comments that people are posting at the bottom of PilotOnline stories. Now if you've ever wasted enough time to read the comments that pop up at the bottom of a YouTube video, then you know the caliber of comment that I often get to see. I'm not sure what it is about commenting that entices vulgar extremists, but my hunch is it has something to do with ego.

Anywho. Lately I've noticed that our right-wing constituents seem to be struggling to decide on which derogatory name they will use when referring to President Barack Obama (who, as far as they are concerned, is planning to take away their guns, kill their unborn babies, institute a Marxist philosophy on all Americans, and hold the middle-class hard-working tax-paying law-abiding gun-totting white man down). Here's a little sampling of what I've seen so far:

BO
Barack HUSSEIN Obama (can we not give it a rest yet?)
Obummer
Barack Obailout

There are countless others, but they all seem to be reworkings of the same four concepts: he smells, he shares a name with a mass-murdurer, they're bummed he's in office and he's partly responsible for the bailout.

I wonder if any of these will eventually stick and become as pervasive as "W" (pronounced DUB-yuh). Perhaps approval ratings have to dip below 40% before the country finds the need to choose a mean-spirited nickname. I guess well have to wait and see. In the meantime, I'll leave you with the nicknames of other presidents past.

Gerald Ford - Jerry, the accidental president (ouch)
Calvin Coolidge - Silent Cal
Andrew Johnson - Sir Veto
Dwight D. Eisenhower - Kansas Cyclone
James Buchanan - The Do-Nothing President
(for more)

1 comment:

Dan said...

Don't forget Tricky Dick Nixon