Posted by Frank James at 5:11 pm CST
The thing about blogging is that there will be certain postings that upon reflection make you wish you had taken the day off. My posting “The ‘Honorable’ Karl Rove” is an example.A Swamp reader who goes by “Bruce” wrote: “I did a google search (took me all of 2 minutes) for the phrase ‘The honorable Karl Rove’ and found that that phrase had been used since at least Nov. 2001 (see pulseonline), had been used on pbs June 14, 2002, and had been used on the White House Fellowship website Nov. 2002. In all, there were 770 hits on the phrase. In other words, the word ‘honorable’ has been used for years.”
Well Bruce, I googled too (although later than I should have) and you are exactly right. There are plenty of instances of senior White House staff being referred to as “honorable,” in this and previous administrations. Evidently, it’s perfectly proper and typical to address any senior White House official with the honorific “honorable.” My apologies. Nothing dishonorable was intended.
