Some High Officials Are Overdue for the Dishonor Roll

Memo to: Ambassador Rufus Gifford
Chief of Protocol
U.S. Department of State

Dear Ambassador Gifford,

The New York Times recently proffered a troubling assessment of the new, scandalous, absence of consequences for public figures engaging in conduct not illegal nor even, per se, unethical. Yet it is “conduct unbecoming” and, bluntly, dishonorable.

You, in your capacity as Chief of Protocol of the U.S. Department of State possess, ex officio, a power to place any public official on a symbolic “dishonor roll,” stripping them of their honorific epaulet, “Honorable.”

Which would sting.

The official protocol regarding Protocol of the Chief of Protocol of the United States Department of State states:

“In the United States, government officials who have been elected to public office or are appointed by the President of the United States with the advice and consent of the Senate are afford the courtesy title of The Honorable. … Courtesy titles are not salutations and are used only in writing before the full name of a person. Additionally, it is custom in the United States for a person who has held the title of The Honorable to continue to be addressed as such after leaving a high-ranking position, unless they are removed from office or leave in disgrace.”

You have the power, during your tenure, to direct the withholding of this courtesy title. I encourage you to use your soft power and direct your staff to replace “The Honorable” with Mr., Ms., or other neutral appellation where the person in question has dishonored himself or herself or their office.

On what criteria? Let’s dig down.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary, America’s canonical definitional guide, defines “honorable” as:

1: deserving of respect or high regard: deserving of honor;…

2a: of great renown: ILLUSTRIOUS …

b: entitled to honor or respect ….

3: performed or accompanied with marks of honor or respect

4a: attesting to creditable conduct…

b: consistent with a reputation that is not tarnished or sullied…

5: characterized by integrity: guided by a keen sense of duty and ethical conduct….

Mr. Ambassador? To insist that the honorific Honorable only be used when not in violation of its plain dictionary definition would not be impudent. It would be prudent.

Elegant, even.

Further, your own protocol references custom. So let’s not fail to note that Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (on which American jurisprudence was founded and from which we have departed to our grave injury) states “that in our law the goodness of a custom depends upon it's having been used time out of mind; or, in the solemnity of our legal phrase, time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. This it is that gives it it's weight and authority; and of this nature are the maxims and custom which compose the common law. …”

The various meanings of “honorable,” beginning with “deserving of respect,” continuing with an “unsullied reputation,” and concluding with “characterized by integrity” have been in place since the time whereof the memory of man, and woman, runneth not to the contrary.

Per the New York Times in For Trump’s G.O.P., Crossing Lines Has Few Consequences, we are reminded that “There was a time in the nation’s capital when lines mattered, and when they were crossed, the consequences were swift and severe.” 

Political history is replete with such consequences. Let us recall the censure of Sen. Joe McCarthy, the resignation in the face of certain removal by impeachment of President Richard Nixon, the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton and the two impeachments of Donald J. Trump.

Former Gov. Mark Sanford, censured after covering up a torrid love affair, observed to the Times’s reporter that “It’s a tragic indictment of the political process these days — and the Republican Party of late — that truth doesn’t matter, words don’t matter, everybody can be elastic in areas that were once viewed as concrete. … You cross lines now, and there are no longer consequences.”

It may seem like a trifle, Mr. Ambassador, to withhold an honorific. It may seem trivial to make, without fanfare but with due process, public the names from whom that honorific is to be henceforth withheld. Yet as Napoleon once observed, “I have seen a trifle decide the most important issues in the gravest of affairs.”

Surely, in your role as Chief of Protocol in the United States Government’s most distinguished and meticulous bastion of etiquette, you can set a meaningful precedent for the rest of us to follow.

Time, Mr. Ambassador, to restore honor to the honorific Honorable.