These people, all parties, who hold positions of public trust - Jayzus, that sounds quaint - need to get their acts together. These offices are not intended to be lifetime sinecures. If you're not up to the job, get out before people show up to yank your sorry a## out of there. Get some goddamn dignity and root around for a sense of responsibility. You are not the office. Like Kean in NJ, someone clearly not temperamentally suited for public office, stop trying to explain and just get the ------ out.

#3
Me, too, right up the walls whenever I hear it. Not sure when, how, or why it started but it's gotten way out of hand. When you're in office or actually holding a rank use of your job title is okay. But when you're out? Baby, you're o-u-t. You want to do it? Go for it. You don't? Please feel free to join me over at the lemonade stand. Same for standing up when so-and-so enters the room or makes their way to the dais. You want to show them some respect? Fine. You don't? Also fine. I mean, I would personally pick and choose because it can be taken as a hugely confrontational act by some people. But respect is earned. Rank and office are held and then they are not.

So I guess the president of my high school class should properly be addressed down at the Winn-Dixie as "Madam President"?

"The lightning. It is good for you! Your father was Frankenstein, but your mother was the lightning!"
Ygor, The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)