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The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

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President Clinton? | 214 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
President Clinton?
Authored by: chriseyre2000 on Wednesday, September 26 2012 @ 12:45 PM EDT
There is a common tradition that retired military (and more recently senior
politician's) are called by their pre-retirement rank.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

President Clinton?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 26 2012 @ 01:37 PM EDT
It's not accurate. "Former president Clinton" would be
correct.

Our congress is specifically forbidden from granting titles,
for rather good reasons. It irks me that so many people
willingly grant unofficial titles, but maybe that's my
cultural background - I have some experience with how
aristocracy works in practice.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Links to Emily Post and to The Protocol School of Washington on the topic
Authored by: bugstomper on Wednesday, September 26 2012 @ 06:28 PM EDT
Both Emily Post and Robert Hickey whose Protocol School of Washington trains protocol experts agree on this.

In formal context, "Hello, Mr. Clinton" or address a letter to "The Honorable William Jefferson Clinton" and begin it with "Dear Mr. Clinton".

Emily Post says that in an informal setting it is ok to address him as "President Clinton". Robert Hickey does not say that, and if I read him correctly considers that disrespectful to the current President. The rule is that only when there is more than one holder of a title at a time, as with Senator, is a former holder of the office called by that title.

However, Hickey says this about media use of "President Clinton", which I think is the most relevant way to consider it for articles in Groklaw:

What you hear in the media are not forms of address: they are reporters specifying for clarity in the third person a person in the context of their story. So, referring to "President Clinton" "President Kennedy" and "President Obama" are all clear ways of referring to a person in a written story or newscast.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Just my recollection ..
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 28 2012 @ 12:46 AM EDT
I'm no expert either and I don't have any references to cite. But my
recollection is that prior to the Watergate scandal (debacle, whatever) it was
common to refer to ex-Presidents as President so-and-so as a sign of respect.
After Nixon resigned in disgrace many people become unfortable with this
practice and stopped using it (for all ex-Presidents, not just Nixon). Then as
time went by the practice gradually started gaining currency again.

I believe this practice was reserved to referring to them in third person and
possibly in an introduction, but not as a form of address.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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