That's his title. What are they supposed to call him?

Remember that these are some of the same people who insist on calling the other team the "Democrat" party and recently considered adopting a resolution renaming the Dems as the Democratic Socialist Party (or something like that, I refuse to honor it with a Google)

Politics and foreign policy by playground taunt is part of their philosophy.

The repugs only wish they ever had a "supreme leader" but Bush talked Him to death!

Throwing everything at the wall to see what'll stick is hardly a sound rhetorical strategy.

No, but over time it can be sound political propaganda strategy. I can't help believing there's a cumulative effect. God knows, the right never stops and the media never fails to give them a megaphone.

If BHO had called Khamenei "Supreme Leader of the Axis of Evil" I could tolerate it. But just "Supreme Leader"? Doesn't he realize how demoralizing that is to the Iranian protesters? It's like a detective having to hear a criminal boss called "the mastermind".

Is this what it's like to shoot fish in a barrel

How many times did Bush "solicitously" refer to King Fahd? Didn't we figure out that kings suck over 220 years ago? Isn't Saudi Arabia a much nastier place than Iran? Shouldn't we be embarrassed by all the monarchies and dictators that we define as allies?

i've always been annoyed about General Motors.

I thought at the most he deserved the rank of Colonel...

"Throwing everything at the wall to see what'll stick is hardly a sound rhetorical strategy."

It's the bitch-slap approach to politics, to borrow Josh Marshall's phrase. I think it's losing some of its effectiveness, but you never know when one of these absurd talking points that nobody bothers to refute will actually make sense to Joe and Jane Sixpack.

The base of the R party wants nothing more than to gnash teeth over something Obama. Anything Obama. This is what it boils down to. Bennett and Krauthammer are, in their own Pavlovian way, responding to the call to keep the base in a constant state of agitation. The base, again true to Pavlovian rules, continue to gnash their teeth and crawl all over themselves as they try to destroy the president's ability to do his job.

Well, Obama referring to foreign leaders by their official titles is all part and parcel of his blame-America ways, including pronouncing peoples' names the way they pronounce them and pronouncing countries names the way its citizens pronounce them.

Who the hell does he think he is, anyway?

Neill: HAH!!

So, just in case the official title of a state leader becomes objectionable: How exactly does the GOP think foreign leaders should officially call the President of the United States?

Any suggestions?

This is the GOP equivalent of internet spam. It costs a spammer precious little to bombard your email inbox, or join some discussion forum and start dozens of threads in every subforum (or reply to dozens of existing threads) with a copy & pasted shill for whatever sh!tty wares they're hawking. And what do they care? If only a miniscule fraction of a percent of eyeballs who see the spam check it out, the spammer wins. He got more hits then he would've received had he not spammed at all. This is the philosophy of the internet spammer, and this is the philosophy of the GOP. Don't think of it as meremy flinging sh!t against the wall to see what sticks. Think of it as a constant barrage of drive-by sh!t-flinging. Obama's comment of Iran's "Supreme Leader" isn't going to affect everybody. It may only persuade a few dozen low-info voters to rethink how they feel about Obama. The next B.S. faux-scandal will persuade a few dozen others, whilst reinforcing a negative perception to everyone who already think negatively of Obama (including the few dozen who fell for the "Supreme Leader" faux scandal). Drips and drabs, drops of water on a rock, and maybe they can erode Obama's base just enough to minimize damage or even gain seats in 2010 and shoot for their fifty-percent-plus-one "mandate" majority in 2012.

What this strategery fails to take into account is just how petty & small it makes the party appear to mods & right-leaning indies. Are the few low-info voters they're gaining worth the limited support they possibly lose by those who are really paying attention and are disgusted by their constant barrage of negativity and hypocrisy, blasting Obama for doing things their leaders also do, and attacking in ways those same Republican leaders labeled as treasonous during Bush's regime?

The right should at least start taking a little more time to think their criticisms through.

C'mon, as our Dear Leader, W, pointed out so many times, 'thinking' is something the Intellectual Elite do. The smart people go with their gut!

Mssrs Krauthammer and Bennett - Confused here - Should I refer to our former President in Preston Hollow as ex-President Scheisskopf or Citizen Scheisskopf?

Yes, good one, Neil - After trying some of the KFCs, I thought the Colonel should never have been promoted past Spec 4 in the mess hall.

But Al, THAT'S HIS TITLE!

In any given year I call people "Reverend" whom I don't revere, "Sister" to women who aren't my sister, and "doctor" to healers who have no degrees in areas I consider remotely efficacious.

Adopting the titles others choose for their leaders (of all stripes) whether we agree with the underlying sentiment or not in address is common courtesy 101 in any pluralistic community that hopes for even a base level of comity and in foreign policy this applies to the nth degree.

And as far as the protesters go, I don't pretend to know what they think about this, but I have noticed that the one way to united a factious community is to mock or attack the whole from without and there is no evidence that anyone in Iran wants to replace the Supreme Leader position, even if they want to replace a specific person.

It isn't that the blowtard element didn't know that their own people had referred to Khameini as the Supreme Leader. All that mattered to them is that the Pavlovian dogs that they control didn't have the mental capacity to think about it. It's the same thing with family values. Democrats who fail in their marital duties are pilloried while Republicans who do even worse (Guliani, McCain, Vitter and Gingrich come to mind) are in leadership positions.

Serious poker players work to avoid "tilt", named for the same phenomenon on old pinball machines. When you're tilting, you stand to lose a lot of money because you stop making rational decisions and let your emotions (usually frustration) lead to bad plays.

It's been obvious since before the inauguration that President Obama tilts the Republicans. Their criticisms make little sense and do nothing to improve the long-term standing of their party. But they're on tilt, so self-interest is really beside the point now.

"Supreme Leader" sounds so crass. I much prefer "Unitary Executive."
Bill Bennett can eat a sack of shit.

What's annoying is that this is the deliberate use of a translation, which while technically correct, conveys a different emotionally impact in English than in Farsi. It's like Sadaam's "Mother of All Wars" remark. While this was a literally correct translation, idiomatically it just meant a really important or big battle. But by translating it literally, it seems cartoonishly evil.

How is "Supreme Leader" really any different from "Prime Minister"?

To quote from an online dictionary:
Supreme: highest in rank or authority; paramount; sovereign; chief.

Prime: of the highest eminence or rank

How are these different? I know, it is a waste to bother to argue with insane people, but it still drives me crazy.

If the guy's title was "Super Wonderful Leader" or something, I could kind of understand these attacks. But "Supreme Leader" doesn't really have any normative content. It doesn't say that he's a great guy or anything. It just says that he's in charge. And he is. So what's the problem?

I got a mordant chuckles out of K using "abject"(hopeless) in his propaganda piece to describe Obama.
I'm sure K thinks K is too clever by half.

How is "Supreme Leader" really any different from "Prime Minister"?

Well, "Supreme" is similar to "Prime", but "Leader" and "Minister" really mean very different things, as the former connotes intrinsic authority and the latter extrinsic authority, which is why you tend to find a "prime minister" as head of government in systems where the administration is notionally subordinate to a a monarch or other chief of state distinct from the head of government, or where the PM and cabinet are subordinate to a parliament or other legislative body, or very often where both conditions apply.

In other news, Krauthammer's difficulties in ordering at Taco Bell continue unabated, where instead of asking for a Taco Supreme he insists on calling it, "you know, that one Taco meal that doesn't deserve its honorific."

trex wins the thread! That has to be the funniest damned thing I have read in a loooonnnng time, and I desperately needed the chuckle. Thank you!

But, seriously, that's what he's called in Iran. He's either "Rahbar-e enqelab" (Leader of the Revolution) or "Rahbar-e moazzam" (Supreme Leader), both of which one would think the crazies would object to.

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Actually, it isn't his title to begin with. The Iranian constitution defines the role as "The Leader of the Revolution". But I hardly expect someone that takes Krauthammer seriously to do research or think outside the WSJ box.

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