The U.S. Constitution can be interpreted to explicitly forbid the federal government from granting any formal titles, depending on what you mean by “formal”:
It could be argued that any grant of a “formal” title that survives the actual tenure of a public office and purports to grant some degree of increased social status is a “title of nobility” so prohibited. That’s what I would argue anyway.
According to the State Department’s Chief of Protocol former Presidents remain entitled to “the Honorable” for life. If and when Hillary Clinton takes office the White House will have to work out some way of refering to Bill Clinton without creating confusion with the President. The simplest solution would be to refer to him as “Mr Clinton” or “the First Gentleman”.
The Honorable Bill Clinton? It’s like Protocol office set out to find the only title that would annoy Republicans more than calling him President Clinton.
Well, it certainly wasn’t Sir Thatcher: Sir is used with the given name, never the family name alone.
He was already Major Denis Thatcher when he married Margaret Roberts in 1951. I presume that during her term in office, they would have been the Right Honourable Margaret Thatcher, MP, and Major Thatcher.
After he was given a baronetcy in 1991, it was the Rt. Hon. Lady Thatcher, MP, and Major Sir Denis Thatcher. This persisted until she was made a baroness in her own right.
Google Fight time!
Methodology
Several former United States Presidents were compared. “President ___” vs. “[Previous federal honorific] ____” were also compared for each President. “Vice President ____” was omitted because the honorific is used for Vice President Cheney today and is not a particularly memorable title for those VPs who later served as POTUS. The Presidents Bush were omitted because one of them is currently holding the office, which could poison the results. Abbreviated honorifics such as “Sen.” and “Gen.” were fairly useless, netting under 1,000 hits in each case.
Results
President Clinton: 32,400,000
Governor Clinton: 2,070,000
Mr. Clinton: 1,420,000
President Reagan: 2,000,000
Governor Reagan: 1,910,000
Mr. Reagan: 418,000
President Carter*: 4,130,000
Governor Carter: 1,930,000
President Ford*: 11,700,000
Congressman Ford: 1,540,000
President Nixon**: 2,030,000
Senator Nixon: 1,770,000
Congressman Nixon: 1,010,000
President Johnson*: 34,300,000
Senator Johnson: 1,930,000
President Eisenhower: 1,930,000
General Eisenhower: 2,010,000
Mr. Eisenhower: 15,000
President Truman*: 1,910,000
Senator Truman: 1,340,000
President Roosevelt***: 1,840,000
Governor Roosevelt: 1,790,000
Mr. Roosevelt: 187,000
President Coolidge: 1,580,000
Governor Coolidge: 449,000
Mr. Coolidge: 27,200
President Harding****: 1,840,000
Senator Harding: 719,000
President Taft: 1,810,000
Governor Taft: 1,160,000
Mr. Taft: 85,400
President McKinley: 1,740,000
Governor McKinley: 742,000
Mr. McKinley: 62,400
Most Presidents who served during the 20th century were compared. The criterion for excluding “Mr.” was highly unscientific–basically, if I could think of a public figure with the same surname who wasn’t related to the President in question and achieved notoriety through means other than same President, the surname was deemed “too common.” For example, “Mr. Taft” refers to other famous Tafts, but they all seem to be related to President Taft. Hey, I said it was unscientific.
Analysis
Governors (7)
President: 43,500,000
Governor: 10,051,000
Average difference: +4,778,429
Senators (4)
President: 38,389,000
Senator: 5,759,000
Average difference: +8,157,500
Congressmen (2)
President: 13,730,000
Congressman: 2,550,000
Average difference: +5,590,000
Mr. (7)
President: 43,300,000
Mr.: 2,215,000
Average difference: +5,869,286
Generals? Well, there’s only one, and it’s right up there, so scroll up, ya lazy bastard. This is getting to be a lot of work. 
Total difference (all): 24,395,215
Total difference (all except Mr.): 18,525,929
Average difference per category (all): 6,098,804
Average difference per category (all except Mr.): 6,175,310
Conclusion
Presidents Reagan, Nixon, Truman, Roosevelt, and Taft tended to be referred to by some honorific other than President almost as often as not. President Eisenhower was actually referred to more often as General Eisenhower; his exception to the rule is easily explained by the fact that his service in World War II was one of the century’s defining contributions of any single man to the stability of the world, to which the leadership of any given country in peacetime pales in comparison. The overwhelming result overall was that Presidents tended to be referred to as Presidents for life. An average difference of over 6 million instances favoring the use of “President” as an honorific makes a compelling case. There exists room to speculate as to the reasons for the differences between Presidents, but the logical conclusion in any case is that the former President Clinton still gets to wear the P-word as he sees fit, from now into eternity. Anyway, if the service of President Clinton taught us anything, it’s that a presidential spouse can influence the nation’s politics without having the title him/herself. I’ve met at least one person who will vote for Senator Clinton because she wants Bill and Hillary back in office, implying both that (a) Hillary occupied an important role in the Oval Office other than the one she shared with Monica Lewinsky and (b) the former President Clinton may rightfully have just as much influence in his wife’s America.
Damn. I’m gonna go get myself a cold one.
ETA: I didn’t know about that “The Honorable” business, but current members of the House and Representatives get that title too, as do an assload of judges in an assload of jurisdictions, so bite me.
So Bill is President Clinton, but Hillary is the former first lady? I’m so glad for the consistency.
I checked the New York Times website to see how they referred to Bill Clinton and found that they seemed to be consistent in referring to him as President Clinton (without the former or formerly) when discussing events during his presidency and then using former president when talking about him since then.
So you get sentences like, “When the issue last arose, in 2000, a similar resolution also won approval by a House committee, but President Clinton then succeeded in persuading a Republican speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, to withdraw the measure before the full House could vote.”
Or this fun sentence. "Mr. [attorney Gerald L.] Shargel said that although Mr. [Oscar S.] Wyatt was an adviser to President Kennedy, a close friend of President Johnson, a confidant of Presidents Nixon and Reagan and a supporter of President Clinton, he was “no friend” and “no admirer” of President Bush or his father.
Versus this one. “[Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice has also spoken by phone with former President Clinton about his work on the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace deal.”
It may not be much to go by, but the English-language press in Thailand uses a lowercase P when referring to all former US presidents – ie, “In 1978, president Carter was attacked by a rabbit” – while using uppercase P for sitting pesidents.
I call shenanigans. A google search is going to count every mention of “President X” and not separate out those which postdated his term of office. The majority of President Clinton’s hits, for example, were probably something like “President Clinton established the first official White House website on October 21, 1994” - something that happened while he was serving as President.
Yes, but still, that’s the way the English-language press here handles it. Not a sitting president at this moment in time, your P gets lowercased, even with actions performed during your term.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, the 44th President of the United States and the 42nd President of the United States.”
Good point, I was just trying to make the point about there being no equivilent of a First Lady and screwed up the Title usage. I did not even know about the Major part.
Jim
General usage in the press, and among those who introduce at functions, is to title former presidents “President SoAndSo.” The use of “former” is often reserved for situations where it is important to establish that the person in question is not the current president, such as the sentence about Secretary of State Rice given in the examples by Dewey Finn. Of course, not everyone uses the same conventions, and some will fail to be consistent in the use of the same convention across time, so exceptions will exist.
None of which matters when it comes to official protocol. I will find it interesting what Liberal finds out on Monday when he calls the proper authorities on the subject…
I know it’s not exactly the same thing, but how are G.W. and G.H.W. Bush introduced when they are together?
I think the press does a terrible job of referring to people by their formal titles. For example, were I elected to Congress, I’d probably be called Representative Ravenman or Congressman Ravenman. In formal usage, I’d be The Honorable Ravenman or Mr. Ravenman depending on how I’m being referred to.
We should be careful to distinguish between how people are announced versus how they are referred to. As Liberal says, when Bush enters a room, he is announced as “the President of the United States,” not “President Bush.” In speeches and press clips he may be referred to as “President Bush.”
Turns out most good dictionaries tell you the formal terms of address for former Presidents. Link. That former President is supposed to be announced as “The Honorable Bill Clinton,”
and then in speeches, he may be referred to as “former President Clinton,” “Mr. Clinton,” or “the guy with the cigar,” though that’s not a matter of protocol but of taste.
So awaiting conclusive word from Liberal, my money is that when Hillary and Bill make an appearance at one of the inaugural balls on Jan 20, 2009, they will be announced with, “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States and the Honorable Bill Clinton.” And if you went up to shake his hand, it would be appropriate to say, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Clinton.”
Alas, I only found out about him after I did the study (or whatever it is). Anyway, even with that poisoning the results in favor of “Governor”, “President” was preferred by far for former presidents who also served as governor.
While we wait, here’s an update. I called the Office of Protocol Ceremony at 9:02. A voice message said the office is closed. I called the Official Business Office at 9:04. They switched me over to the Office of Protocol Ceremony. A voice message said the office is closed. I called the White House switchboard, hoping that someone in the White House might be familiar with presidential protocol. The operator referred me to the Official Business Office of the State Department. I called them at 9:20. They switched me to the Office of Protocol Ceremony. A new voice message said that I could leave a message. I left a message. Perhaps it is time to establish a Department to Assist Unimportant People With Bureaucratic Brushoffs.
The answer:
I called the State Department switchboard, and the nicest lady in the whole world (Janet) took down my question, walked over to some office or another, and called me back with the answer. The announcement will be:
Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States and the Honorable Bill Clinton
