I was looking at the newsstands yesterday morning, and I noticed this interesting divergence or nomenclature. The Washington Post reported that a airport called “National” will open tomorrow. Whereas the Washington Times announces that “Reagan Airport” will return to service.
Up to that time, I never heard anyone call the airport simply “Reagan Airport” (later that afternoon, I was listening to Virginia Governor/Head of RNC Jim Gilmore, where he called it “Reagan Airport”, so he is the first I’ve witnessed!).
Generally I hear “National Airport”, “Reagan National”, “Washington National”, “Reagan Washington” (which I think sounds odd, even though it is the shortening of “Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport”. I always think it should be), “Washington Reagan”.
Gnerally, “Reagan National” is used by TV news folks more than anybody else. “National” is used by most of the population here since it’s one word and enough to distinguish it from “Dulles [International]” and “BWI” (Baltimore-Washington International). Out of towners tend to be the ones who append Washington to the name.
What do you call our downtown airport.
National, because I refuse to say the “R” word. Didn’t like him then, don’t like him now. I’m appalled at the worshipers in Congress who seem compelled to name everything in DC after the guy.
“Ooh, let’s name an airport after the guy who broke up the air traffic controllers’ union as one of his first acts in the Presidency! Then threaten to withhold development funds from the city it’s located in unless they name the Metro stop after him, too!” :rolleyes:
I realize that Reagan was a major shaper of this country’s destiny in the modern era (did a hell of a job with Afghanistan, by the way – hiring that Osama bin Laden and teaching him how to fight a guerilla war was a stroke of genius), so I recognize that people are gonna start naming stuff after him. But an airport? He single-handedly decimated the safety of the U.S. aviation system by pink-slipping all the controllers. Even now air traffic control isn’t as good as it was in 1979 because there was this gap in the knowledge base and the new people often had to start from scratch.
Also, I’m pretty pissed off about the fact that the Republicans in Congress are all for devloution of government power to the local level, except of course when they don’t like what the local government wants to do. Fuck Bob Barr.
Good question, Ukelele Ike, but I think the resistance to “Reagan National” is more likely to simply be a resistance to change, and the vocal anti-Reagan dopers are an exception to the rule. After all, how many people do you know who refer to LAX by its “new” proper name, Bradley?
For the record, I refer to the NYC area airports as Please, Lord, No! (Newark) Do I Really Have To? (LaGuardia) and Not By the Hair of My Chinny Chin Chin (JFK) and 9 times out of 10, people agree with my assessments.
I like just “National” now. I don’t begrudge Reagan having some stuff named after him (although I like my ex-Prezzes in the ground before we go off naming things after them), but it seems that this airport was already named after a pretty decent ex-Prez, who BTW was neither Dem or Rep. Why go and screw with history as a popularity contest.
FWIW, there is a highway in my locale that used to be called “Cross County” and was renamed “Ronald Reagan Cross County”. The locals, mostly Republicans, still call it plain old Cross County.
That’s as may be, but he already had a damn building named after him here in DC. We don’t need an airport and a Metro station named after him as well. Plus I really do think it’s insulting to air traffic controllers.