I have noticed a disconcerting amount of threads with "Bush" in the title. "Bush" is dominating this little discussion board. Now, I'm not here to take up for President Bush or castigate anyone for taking potshots at him.

However, there's a theme thing and a motiff thing and a redundancy thing going on here. Now, because "Bush" happens to be a proper name, calling on my fellow Ironworkers to use synonyms is silly -- so a simple "shrub" "weed" "tree" or "plant" word substitution won't solve our problem.

As well, and I am sooo guilty of this as well, we often just call him "Bush." Well, technically the title of the President of the U.S. is always "President Bush," or in directly addressing him, "Mr. President." Of course, calling him "Shrub" or "Leetle oil monkee" is right out, but we all transgress. However, in our thread titles shouldn't we all be more mindful and artful?

Anyway, I for one make a Promise to Ironworks to use the word "Bush" less in my thread titles. It'll be hard, I know, especially since that one word draws readers to a thread like flies to dung. But, in the end, we will all be better off for it -- lest someone make a motion to rename the CE forum something like "Hotbed of Bush Bashing" or "The Bush Discussion Room" or some other such title.

That said, I call on my fellow Ironworkers to do the same, so that those venturing from other IW threads and other internet sites don't see "Bush after Bush after Bush" and think we are one-dimensional, narrow minded, or funded by DeanforAmerica.org.

So, who's with me?

[ 02-03-2004, 02:27 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

Except the word "President" implies he was elected by a majority vote, and it's still more than a little unclear about that. Also, addressing someone by just their last name, especially if you omit a title, is a sign of disrespect. That is why people do it.

Also, thread titles are sort of like headlines, yes? "President Bush" takes up that much more space. Newspapers say "Bush" all the time, just like they said "Clinton"

[ 02-03-2004, 02:46 PM: Message edited by: Illumina Drathiran'ar ]

But we're not addressing him. Were he in the room, I'm sure we'd call him George, Mr.Bush, Mr.President etc.

Calling him "Bush" as a third party is a perfectly acceptable form of reference. Churchill, Cromwell, Caeser, Einstein, DaVinci, Beethoven et al are hardly shown disrespect by not having a "Mr." in front when spoken of now are they. ;)

Not actually. "President" implies he was elected president by whatever democratic voting system is in place. Which he was. He's not the first President to lose the popular election but win based on the electoral college. And, the electoral college is a necessary evil in America, and has its roots dating back to the Great Compromise. But, that's another thread. ;)

Yep, in many instances last name usage is a sign of disrespect, but in others it's not (like sports). I don't use it as disrespectful, I'm just too lazy to type it all out every time. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Unclear huh? Mr. Bush was elected by an Electorial Majority. Theoretically, it only take 12 popular votes to win a Presidential Election. One person voting in the states with the highest Electoral density.

We have a pretty good number of "Blair" threads too.

Would it even take that? I thought that most of the electors were capable of voteing however they wanted, so couldn't a bunch of them just randomly decide to vote for someone?

[ 02-03-2004, 05:06 PM: Message edited by: Seraph ]

While the Electors may vote any way they wish, the candidate that wins the State chooses the people that fill those slots. So a candidate is going to choose someone that is pretty much garuanteed to vote for them. There have been a couple of instances where the Collage didn't vote as expected, but I can only think of maybe one or two .....

If the thread is about the current president of the United States of America, or about bushfires, I see little wrong with using the word Bush in a title. Although, since the moratorium on religious debates there have been a increase of Bush threads, there are more things in the World to discuss than Bush.

Interresting results on the poll, BTW.

Maybe I need to revisit 8th Grade Civics class, but I thought the electoral college had to vote the way the state goes.

Yessir Mr. President.

One can only assume the same goes for all heads of state.

Perhaps some leeway if one poster chooses to address his/her own head of state how they choose.