# The President of the United States and the Honorable Bill Clinton **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 27, 2007, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204 "2007-10-27T05:49:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/21 "2007-10-28T02:41:28Z")
[QUOTE=qwest] I have regularly heard former US presidents referred to as President so and so. I’m surprised to hear that they do not retain some sort of formal title. [/QUOTE] 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”: > [@](#): > > **No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States** : And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. 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. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/22 "2007-10-28T03:15:32Z")
[QUOTE=qwest] I have regularly heard former US presidents referred to as President so and so. I’m surprised to hear that they do not retain some sort of formal title. Former Canadian Prime Ministers are entitled to the Right Honourable honorific for life. [http://www.pch.gc.ca/progs/cpsc-ccsp/pe/titre\_e.cfm](http://www.pch.gc.ca/progs/cpsc-ccsp/pe/titre_e.cfm) [/QUOTE] 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”. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/23 "2007-10-28T04:22:01Z")
> [@](#): > > According to the State Department’s Chief of Protocol former Presidents remain entitled to “the Honorable” for life. 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. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/24 "2007-10-28T05:28:36Z")
[QUOTE=What Exit?] Wasn’t it just Mr. then Sir Thatcher. England does not have the equivalent of First Lady. Why bother, they have a Queen and potentially Princesses. [/QUOTE] 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. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/25 "2007-10-28T06:08:32Z")
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 - Generic “Mr.” excluded because their names are too common for the comparison to be useful. \*\* President Kennedy was omitted because he was far from the only Kennedy to serve in the Senate and/or the House, but he _was_ the only Kennedy to serve as POTUS, so “Senator” and “Congressman” could give misleading results. \*\*\* President Roosevelt was included because both Presidents Roosevelt also served as Governor of New York, so their results could be taken as aggregates. \*\*\*\* President Wilson was excluded because “Governor Wilson” can also refer to Governor David Clive Wilson of Hong Kong. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/26 "2007-10-28T06:21:15Z")
> [@The New York Sun](#): > > Senator Clinton has won a court battle with a disgruntled campaign donor who claimed that his business dealings were unfairly disrupted by President Clinton, the former first lady, and their associates. So Bill is President Clinton, but Hillary is the former first lady? I’m so glad for the consistency. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/27 "2007-10-28T06:27:59Z")
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.” ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/28 "2007-10-28T06:50:50Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/29 "2007-10-28T08:03:45Z")
> [@](#): > > 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/30 "2007-10-28T08:38:28Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] … something that happened while he was serving as President. [/QUOTE] 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. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/31 "2007-10-28T08:42:18Z")
“Ladies and Gentlemen, the 44th President of the United States and the 42nd President of the United States.” ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/32 "2007-10-28T10:47:23Z")
[QUOTE=matt\_mcl] 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. [/QUOTE] 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 ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/33 "2007-10-28T13:45:01Z")
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… ---
**Author:** ![JustAnotherGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/58f4c7/32.png) [@JustAnotherGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustAnotherGeek)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/34 "2007-10-28T14:03:23Z")
I know it’s not exactly the same thing, but how are G.W. and G.H.W. Bush introduced when they are together? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/35 "2007-10-28T14:53:36Z")
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.](http://dictionary.reference.com/writing/styleguide/official.html) 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.” ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/36 "2007-10-28T20:51:56Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > 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. OK, Mr. Skepticism, try this on for size: > [@whitehouse.gov](#): > > President Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas If [that’s](http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/bc42.html) not conclusive, I don’t know what is. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/37 "2007-10-28T22:51:24Z")
> [@](#): > > 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.” I would have ruled out Clinton under that standard, too, due to [De Witt Clinton](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/transport/erie.html). ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2007, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/38 "2007-10-28T23:05:01Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] I would have ruled out Clinton under that standard, too, due to [De Witt Clinton](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/transport/erie.html). [/QUOTE] 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. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/39 "2007-10-29T13:32:34Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2007, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204/40 "2007-10-29T13:48:45Z")
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** 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-and-the-honorable-bill-clinton/424204.md?page=3)