The Dubbing W.

• Author: Clinton, Kate
• Position: George W. Bush - Brief Article

My Bush--induced Tourette's syndrome continues. While he gave himself goosebumps reading his rocks-in-the-stream, feather-in-the-wind, angels-in-the-whirlwind Inaugural speech, I was like that little, braided-hair Von Trapp Family girl after Julie Andrews lays out the do-re-mi. I shrieked, "But tit doesn't mean anything!"

I was at a friend's house at the time, veins popping in my reddened neck, when her three-year-old daughter and budding anger-management counselor tugged at my sleeve and quietly said, "Please use your inside voice."

The violent fantasies have abated, though. I was in danger of becoming as rabid as any Clinton-hater after several pardons and some light vandalism. You stole the Ws off our computers. You stole the election. Nyah, nyah.

There I was, whining about feeling disenfranchised, powerless, bushwhacked, and bewildered to a friend who is African American, and she gave me a "how do you like it?" look that had the effect of a hysteria-stopping, cold-water slap in the face. I have ramped down a notch.

But unlike some, I still find W.'s charm offensive offensive.

The penchant for nicknaming and thus disarming the suckups we call the press has been widely and warmly reported. Marc Lacey, of The New York "Hey Gray Lady!" Times, lovingly reported that in a big-time display of Texas-style levity and folksiness at a meeting of lawmakers in Austin before the coronation, W. called "a rather bulky Democrat from California" (Representative George Miller) "Big George."

The guy is brilliant! Unlike so much else in this beyond-teflon saga, the name stuck. And from now on, you better be fixin' to call Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, "Freddy Boy" because that's what W. dubbed him.

No one seems to get that these nicknames prove our "President" is, indeed, a sophomoric, glad-handing frat boy.

Or that his behavior is akin to a pathetic plea for approval from the lowly office guy who replaces toner and feels compelled to add "meister" to surnames.

I mean no offense to sophomores or office workers. I do mean insult to frat boys.

J. C. Watts, Republican of Oklahoma, is reported to have welcomed the whimsical namecalling as a break from the lemon-sucking...