Like I said it’s a hazy recollection, but depersonifying language is de rigeur in most (all?) of the security fields.
If the codenames were supposed to be some sort of secret secure thing they wouldn’t be published in newspapers or bandied about on messageboards, and the “more clear on radios” explanation is really crap when you think about it: Barack, Michelle, Malia, Natasha are more clear than Renegade, Renaissance, Radiance and Rosebud. And, checking wiki, historical code names are even more strange: Lancer, Lace, and Lyric are more clear than John, Jackie, and Caroline?
This probably has nothing to do with it, but the Talking Heads song “Born Under Punches” has the narrator saying some oddly fitting things: “The hand speaks. The hand of a government man. Well I’m a tumbler. Born under punches. I’m so thin…,” and “I’m not a drowning man! And I’m not a burning building! (I’m a tumbler!) Drowning cannot hurt a man! Fire cannot hurt a man. (Not the Government Man.)”
Somehow, I just can’t see Dubya being a Heads fan or appreciating the song, although the Service employee who picked the names might’ve been. Coincidentally, the new Oliver Stone film “W” was marketed with the Heads song “Once in a Lifetime” featured prominently in the commercials.
But RENEGADE removes the need for additional names and titles; wouldn’t the SS calling the POTUS “Barack” be somewhat disrespectful?
I don’t know if the Secret Service do this in real life, but in Clancy’s “Jack Ryan” novels the agents had additional code words/phrases for potential scenarios involving their charges. When an attempt was made to grab Katie Ryan (code name: SANDBOX) from her pre-school the code word SANDSTORM was used.
Just for interests sake: the names used for the Ryan family were: SABER, SURGEON, ???, SHORTSTOP and SANDBOX (can’t recall Sally’s…)
:smack:
I plead sleep deprivation. I read “denial” about a dozen times on preview because I was woozily paranoid about typing it wrong somehow, and then I completely screwed up “anagram”. I really need to go home and fall over.
Ah yes, thank you. Wasn’t that was after some Secret Service jokes that favoured SHOOTER, referring to his CIA field experience, and that unfortunate matter in the UK.
I saw this night’s NBC evening news. They had a short item about how many people had emailed them complaining that an item on the family’s code names compromised the First Family’s security. NBC news cleared the disclosure with their Secret Service sources, who flat out admitted in today’s information society that codenames are essentially useless. They do it mainly because it’s “cool”. It’s nice to know that instead of hunting down assasination plots or counterfitters, the Secret Service is busy thinking up useless names.
Right. It’s clearly taken a HUGE amount of effort. Besides, the SS gets TONS of free press about it when this comes up every four years. I have absolutely no problem with a group of people who’ve signed up to take bullets for people they probably don’t really like getting a little publicity.
