Higher Education

I have written on my opinion of some of the professors of our institutions of higher learning here in San Diego. Seems idiotic professors aren't limited to San Diego; Harvard has at least one. N. Gregory Mankiw, a professor of economics at Harvard, contributed to a New York Times editorial today with a question (he's a professor of economics),

2. President Obama supports the estate tax. Why should a person who leaves his money to his children pay more in taxes than another person with the same lifetime income who spends all his money on himself?

Um, professor, that person isn't paying any more taxes than does the free spender. It's an "estate tax." That person is dead.

"Former President Bush"
I've now read about a dozen blog posts about how good that title sounds, and more than half of them have been by writers who have more than one time referred to "President Clinton" within the past year. In fact, the "former" or "ex-" is correct usage; this nation has only one president at a time, and the title applies to the office and not to the man. The tendency to apply the usage only to former presidents whom we did not like is annoying.

As is the ongoing tendency to refer to "the nation's commander in chief." This is not some kind of military dictatorship, and our President does not strut around in a uniform with a chest full of medals and a sash across his shoulder, wearing a sword and jackboots. We have, as a nation, no "commander in chief." We have a President.