In the nick of name

OK OK OK, so the transit strike is still on. But what's really grabbing the chattering class - at least the one that chatters on the Globe & Mail letters page - is a deplorable and disrespectful media tendency to label the new opposition leader, Michael Ignatieff, as "Iggy". Shame!

Some go so far as to suggest a Tory smear campaign to reduce the head Liberal guy's stature in the eyes of the Canadian public, both by trivializing his name and associating him with some guys called "The Stooges". As if that would ever happen... Are Tories really so dumb as not to realize Iggy and the Stooges are (were?)* a kick-ass band?

Actually I discount this theory a little less after a quick coyote snuffle through Google images -- I note that most media outlets metalabel Mr I's web images with his full last name. Except those tighty-righty funsters at The National Post, who use, yes, "Iggy".

This got me thinking. With the exception of G.W. Bush, who is socially tone-deaf and maladroit to a fault, and Newfoundland's premier Danny Williams, who calls him "Stevie" just to piss him off, most public comment on our prime minister just labels him "Harper" . Except the Petfinder, whose retro-archaic stylebook insists on giving everybody an honorific such as "Mr." or "Mrs.". Even Michael Jackson, who appears to be neither of the above.

But we coyotes say fair is fair. If we are willing to degrade the tone of the nation's public discourse so much as to call Michael Ignatieff "Iggy" in headlines, then Mr Harper deserves parallel treatment, no matter how starchily he tries to stare down transgressors. "Stevie" is all well and fine, but in recognition of his performance of late - oh, all right, his performance, period - I nominate "Harpo". Because... heh... I do believe that associating him with anybody named Marx is gonna piss him off more than "Stevie"...

* R.I.P. Ronald Franklin Asheton July 17, 1948 - January 6, 2009