Fred Hembeck (who has a wonderful website here) says he was watching MSNBC — "because someone has to" — and he thought of this…
Lester Holt was interviewing some White House official — Jim Wilkinson, was it? — about Richard Clarke's claims, and while it was no surprise to hear the Bush aide aggressively deny all charges, what did catch my attention was the way this official repeatedly kept referring to Clarke as "Dick Clarke!" He said it so often and so relentlessly that you almost got the feeling that part of their strategy is to repeat "Dick Clarke" over and over, hoping somehow that the public will figure that these damning claims were made not by a high-ranking former official, but the guy who once ran American Bandstand!?! That it wasn't the Bush administration who dropped the ball, but good ol' Dick Clarke — just like he does every New Year's Rockin' Eve!?! Geez, they really do think we're stupid, don't they?
Actually, I noticed a lot of Bush staffers calling him "Dick" today. Cheney called him that on Rush Limbaugh's show, Condoleezza Rice called him that in several statements and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan kept referring to him as "Dick." I don't think it's because they want to confuse him with the TV host. I suspect the idea here is to suggest a familiarity. It's like they're saying, "I know this guy well enough that you should trust my opinion of him."
Figuring out exactly how to refer to your opposition is a science. I remember back during the '92 presidential election, there was a period when Republicans thought the Democratic nominee might be Mario Cuomo. A decision was obviously made to keep referring to the man as "Mario" because that made him sound less serious. The premise, I guess, was that good Americans, at least outside New York, do not vote for someone with a foreign first name…plus they planned to suggest that Cuomo had mob ties so it helped to make him sound extra-Italian. There was one speech in which then-President Bush (the last one) especially acted like there was a contest to see how many times he could refer to his possible opponent as "Mario." He said it so often that the following week on Saturday Night Live, Dana Carvey did Bush saying "Mario" over and over.
In the meantime, the Democrats adopted the equally-childish policy of referring to Bush's vice-president by his real name of J. Danforth Quayle. They did that so often that Bush blew up at some public appearance and said it was unbelievably low of them to make fun of a man's name. And of course it was, but it was the same stunt Bush had tried before he discovered he'd be running against a guy with the good ol' American name of Bill. I thought the whole thing was one of those moments when American politics really seems to resemble Kindergarten but without the sandbox and naptime.