Opinions

Clarendon has great potential that is just waiting to be tapped by the right people. It’s been this way for many years, with our community just flirting with what it could become. As we continue to resolve to get involved in 2013, we need to constantly look for ways to improve our town, to capitalize on the opportunities here, and improve the quality of life for those of us who already live here as well as those folks who might consider this as a place to “stay all night… or stay a little longer.”

Last week’s column describing potential businesses that might prosper in Clarendon was well received and leads us into another discussion about tapping our natural resources.

The best example of this is Monroe’s Peach Ranch near Hedley and Howard’s Pumpkin Patch east of Clarendon. Here are two businesses that capitalize on fresh products grown right here in Donley County, but this is an area that could be expanded in local and area stores.

Fredericksburg Farms has done very well with an assortment of jams, jellies, and other products, and God has blessed Donley County with many native plants that could lead to our own niche products. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to buy Donley County Wild Plum Jelly or Mustang Grape Jelly? You wouldn’t try to compete with Smucker’s, but some homemade jellies could make great gift items.

Since grapes grow wild here, maybe that’s God’s way of telling us that we need a winery here? It’s something to think about. They are making them grow on the South Plains, but they seem to do very well on their own here in the Green Belt on the Rolling Plains. Just think of it… Saints’ Roost Winery featuring the Clara Cabernet in an ironic salute to the old prohibitionist herself. My mind runs wild with the marketing ideas for this one.

Along those same lines, we should be able to buy some roasted Donley County peanuts in bags somewhere. What a great gift for the holidays! And it would be a terrific give-away for visitors to the Economic Development & Tourism Office in the Mulkey Theatre. Or heck, sell them in the concession stand at the theatre someday! Local peanuts could also be put into candies and chocolates for even more local flavor.

And here’s something you probably didn’t know. Super Bowl legend and former Clarendon Broncho Kenny King has his own brand of barbecue sauce! Kings Q Sauce boasts a “woo…aah” taste, and it would be terrific to have it for sale in his hometown. There are Kenny King friends and fans right here who would love to “woo” and “aah” for ourselves.

These products would fit very nicely into the already available market of homemade boots, saddles, and leather goods and bring even more notoriety to our fair town. And every locally made product we come up with just further enhances what we have and our prospects for the future.

Meanwhile…

33,802 reasons Hill should quit

Two weeks ago, this column did something it had never done before in calling for a local official to resign from his position for the good of the city. We cited Clarendon Alderman Tommy Hill’s adversarial attitude toward each of the last three city administrators – including voting to fire the last two, his tendency to micromanage city affairs, and his burning need to know what city employees are doing every minute of every day. Now to that list we add official recklessness and apparent incompetence.

Hill’s hasty and emotionally driven motion to fire City Administrator Lambert Little at the December 11, 2012, city meeting called for paying the man’s accrued vacation and sick time. But according to city policy, an employee who is terminated shall not receive compensation for sick leave or vacation time. That money should have never been paid… except that the board, by Hill’s motion, voted to do it.

Alderman Hill served on the board of aldermen for eight years from 2002 to 2010 before choosing not to run for reelection that year. He jumped back into the fray running for election in 2011 and now has nearly ten years of experience on the board… more than any other member. He makes it a habit of nitpicking the city’s employee policies and he constantly harps on saving the taxpayers money, worrying most recently over expenditures by the administrator of 60-something dollars at a conference and a 45-dollar Sam’s Club membership. And yet his motion cost this city an unnecessary $6,609.80.

And to add insult to the taxpayers’ injury, Hill’s motion dismissed the administrator without cause, triggering a provision in Little’s employment agreement that cost this city $25,000 cash plus $2,192.76 in continued health and life insurance benefits. Total cost to fire the administrator: $33,802.56.

Hill wasn’t alone in voting for Little’s termination, but Hill’s experience and obvious roll as a leader on the board puts an added burden on him to do what is right for this city and not make a rash decision that wastes tens of thousands of tax dollars.

“I represent the taxpayers,” Hill has said at city meetings on numerous occasions. But now we have 33,802 very specific reasons why he doesn’t represent the taxpayers and should step down. And that doesn’t include the bill from the city attorney.

As this issue goes to press, our city leaders were again meeting to discuss important matters before them. Without any premonition of the results of that meeting, your humble editor hopes we can all agree that Clarendon is a town with a lot of potential if we can to focus our energies properly and set our goals high.

After Christmas, our family took a much needed vacation to the Davis Mountains, and our travels took us through many small West Texas towns. Some of them were clearly doing well. Others were just as clearly teetering on oblivion.

Over four days we stayed in and toured Fort Davis and Marfa. Both towns are wonderful places to get away from it all, enjoy a slow pace of life, and take in some enriching Southwest history. The McDonald Observatory provides a great educational opportunity for kids of all ages, and our stay at the Prude Ranch was very restful indeed. Like nearly all West Texas folks, everyone we encountered was very friendly and helpful.

But one thing was obvious, setting aside a couple of obvious attractions, Fort Davis and Marfa aren’t that much different from Clarendon. They both have done very well at attracting tourists and unique businesses, but let’s face it – you have to be going to Marfa. You’re not just on your way to Denver or Dallas like so many thousands of people are when they travel through Clarendon on US 287. And we have some things that other rural communities could only dream of having – Clarendon College being the most prominent example.

And so this begins what hopefully will be a series of editorials that will offer suggestions to move Clarendon forward by capitalizing on our assets and seizing opportunities. If any of you readers have ideas along these lines, I encourage you to write them down and share them with us. This week, let’s look at some business ideas that I think would work in Clarendon and enhance our quality of life or our attractiveness to potential residents. Some of these could be incorporated or co-opted by existing businesses, and others would require a new establishment.

It is important to remember that sometimes it takes thinking outside the box to make a business idea work in a small town. In Marfa we visited an ice cream parlor, espresso shop, and laundry mat… all in the same location. It was a unique idea, and the barista there said they stay busy all the time from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. All three of those functions, by the way, would be a nice addition to our city.

Another thing we need – desperately – is new housing for students and medium income families. A lack of housing is the number one detriment to attracting more college students to Clarendon and is a big stumbling block for young families who move here to take jobs at the school, college, and elsewhere. Most rental properties seem to stay full, so perhaps we could attract a developer to build a small apartment complex or series of duplexes to fill this bill.

Clarendon needs a “destination restaurant.” We have some good places to eat, but what I’m talking about is the kind of place that builds a reputation for itself to such a degree that travelers plan to stop in Clarendon to eat at that restaurant because of its consistently good or unique food, a unique atmosphere, and its reputation.

Mrs. Bromley’s Dining Room was such a place. Her food was featured in the Ford Times published by Ford Motor Company and people came from all over the nation to eat with her. Mrs. Bromley closed her doors about 30 years ago, and every couple of years, we still have people stop by the newspaper asking for directions to her dining room. In more recent times, JAMZ became something of a destination with its pizza, fresh sandwiches, and Debbie’s homemade pies; and I would say that Sam Hill’s Pit BBQ was certainly a destination until it burned to the ground. With a little work, a couple of our local places have the potential to become destination restaurants, but we need an eating establishment that puts Clarendon on the map again.

We need a bookstore… or a least a store that sells books. They make great gifts, and tourists love books with a local flavor. The Donley County Courthouse is featured in at least two books on Texas courthouses, a book was written a few years ago set in early day Howardwick, Lonesome Dove has ties to local history, I saw a book in Fort Davis that featured modern tintype photos of cowboys from the JA Ranch, and the list could go on and on. Combine all those with books on Panhandle history, books about Charles Goodnight, books about the Palo Duro, and books of West Texas photographs like those by Wyman Meinzer, and you’ve got a heck of a start on a bookstore or a book section anyway that focuses on Donley County’s heritage.

We need an art gallery or maybe several art galleries. With all the current and historic talent we have here – most prominently with Harold Bugbee – it is a shame that we don’t have a gallery downtown. Perhaps a local artist or organization could partner with the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum and set up a Harold & Olive Vandruff Bugbee Gallery in Clarendon that would feature works by famous and up-and-coming local artists and draw people off the highway.

We need donuts! My kingdom for donuts! In fact, I think a bakery could do well here if it made donuts and other pastries and featured a light lunch menu.

And there are other businesses we need, but we’re short on space. We’ll continue the conversation next week, but in the meantime I encourage everyone to dream a little bit about what we’d like to see Clarendon become. Write your ideas down and let’s put them in print. Resolve to get involved in 2013, and let’s move this community forward.

 Lambert Little is gone from City Hall, and Clarendon must now figure out the best way to move forward as 2013 gets underway.

The Board of Aldermen is faced with several decisions. First and foremost, they have a vacancy to fill on the board since former alderman Terry Noble’s November 27 resignation. The name of Sandy Skeltonwas put forward at the board’s December 11 meeting, but aldermen tabled consideration of making an appointment until next week’s meeting on January 8.

Who the board picks will say a lot about how it intends to govern from this point forward. The appointment of someone with an ax to grind or with a personal agenda will spur further dissension among citizens, but the thoughtful appointment of someone who truly has only the city’s best interests at heart could go a long ways toward bringing people back together.

The board must also consider what process it will undertake to find a replacement for Little. Even those who voted to terminate the former administrator have said they believe Clarendon needs someone in that position. But before we go down the path of making that selection, it would be in the best interest of all involved for Alderman Tommy Hill to step down.

Hill has exhibited an extremely adversarial attitude toward each of the last three city administrators and has voted to fire the last two. No matter who holds the title, Hill takes it upon himself to attempt to micromanage the city’s affairs, injects himself into personnel matters, and repeatedly takes issue with the administrator’s authority. Jesus Christ might be the only one who could do the job to Hill’s liking and then only with the board retaining the right to hire and fire.

In several open meetings, Hill has stated that he sees it as his job to keep an eye on the city employees’ daily activities. No one would think it was a school board member’s job to see that the janitor is sweeping the floor at the Bronco Gym, but Hill thinks being an elected official makes it his responsibility to know what each employee is doing every minute of the day. Aldermen are supposed to set policy. The administrator and supervisors then manage the city just like the superintendent and principals manage the school.

Alderman Hill no doubt means well and he certainly loves his hometown. But unfortunately his personality is creating disharmony at a time when this community needs to find a way to set aside differences and move forward. Now that he has accomplished his latest goal, it would be a good time for him to bow out. Is there any chance of him resigning? No. But his absence would bring a more civil tone to city meetings and create a situation where a good applicant might consider applying for the job of administrator.

The next steps that must be taken are the responsibility of the citizens of this town. Your editor has heard some grumbling about people not doing business at this or that establishment following the dismissal of Mr. Little. That is an intolerable attitude. One of our biggest problems is that qualified businessmen and businesswomen don’t run for local offices for fear the decisions they might make would negatively impact their business.

History is full of stories of local merchants who got hit in the pocketbook after they made tough decisions on an elected board. But as friends and neighbors we need to take strides to see that doesn’t happen. It is no secret that this column disagreed with the city aldermen’s recent decision, but our families have not changed their purchasing or dining habits because of it. It’s politics. You agree or disagree and move on.

In a small town we can’t afford to start lobbying against any business in town. If you support this community, you need to support your local merchants. If you don’t, well then you don’t really support the town.

And finally, it’s time for good people to start thinking about running for office. We’re still several weeks away from the filing time, but we need folks to put some careful thought into serving their community. The situation at the city, in part, has been caused by a lack of participation by the people.

There soon will be opportunities to run for not just the city council but also for the school board, the hospital board, and the college board. If you think you might be a good fit for one of those, then make it a point to attend that board’s meeting or meetings before you file. Educate yourself about that position, what the issues are, and how that entity operates. And then, if you’re willing, throw your hat in the ring and prepare to get your hands dirty and your feelings hurt. Public service, as former mayor Tex Selvidge recently pointed out, is a thankless job, but it is necessary.

And if you can’t run for office or don’t want to, then at least make some time in your busy schedule to attend some of these public meetings. We can’t print a complete transcript of every meeting that occurs in Donley County. (It would take up a lot of space, and frankly you wouldn’t want to read it anyway.) We do, however, make great efforts to keep you abreast of what’s happening. But there can be no substitute for sitting through these meetings yourself, to see how board members interact with each other, to see the tough issues they have to deal with, and for wanting to scream after two hours of pointless debate, “Make a motion already!”

Resolve to get involved in 2013, and our community will be better for it.

The Clarendon Board of Aldermen fired a good man last week. He wasn’t always popular, he wasn’t always right, but he was a good man, and our city is worse off without him.

Lambert Little came to Clarendon two years ago, and he inherited a mess. He did the best he could to work his way through that; and despite what you may hear on the street, he was making progress. No man – or woman – could solve all of this city’s problems in a year or two, but Lambert was trying to do what he could with what he was given.

Over the past several months I’ve heard a lot of scurrilous comments and baseless accusations about Lambert, many of those from people who haven’t spent much time with the man. People love to talk. There’s no doubt about that. But you’d be surprised about what you can learn if you take the time to get to know someone.

In my position, I strive to learn the facts. Not what the folks on Facebook or at the coffee shop claim to know, but the facts as they are. When I hear a rumor about the city or county or school, I pick up the phone or go by the appropriate administrative office and find out the facts.

As such, I have had cause to go visit with Lambert in his office to find out the facts on different issues. I’ve also visited with him in my position with the Clarendon Economic Development Board and as a citizen. Lambert and I have not always agreed on everything, and, in fact, strongly disagreed about some things. But at the end of the day, we parted on friendly terms.

After the terrible way he was let go 12 days before Christmas, I think it is important for you to know what kind of city administrator you did have and some of the things that he accomplished while he was here. I write this knowing full well that I probably will forget something, but here it goes in no particular order.

Lambert got this city to set goals. This is huge, as he would say, because it hadn’t really be done before. The board met in a called session one Saturday (I believe it was in 2010) and talked about what they wanted for Clarendon and how they were going to get there. I was the only member of the public to attend the meeting, and it was truly a high point for our Board of Aldermen. After a list of short and long term goals were set, Lambert started trying to make them happen.

He hired a code compliance officer to try to improve our city by cleaning it up and making people aware of the rules that we are to live by. The first one didn’t work out, he was let go, and a new one was hired amidst some controversy. But regardless, last week the board was presented with an impressive list of activities that the code officer and the municipal court has undertaken in the last month. Things are moving, and we are beginning to see the results of that.

Early on Lambert thought the city needed a new professional look, so he commissioned my wife, Ashlee, to design a new city logo at no cost to the city. The board adopted the logo, and it has come into common use now. Most people may not realize the significance of that, but branding and marketing is an important part of growing a community. Lambert knew that, and he understood that image and perception is a reality in a many people’s minds.

Along those same lines, Lambert conceived the idea of combining the city’s tourism efforts and the EDC’s work by creating a new position. The city and EDC boards embraced the idea, and Lambert led the search that resulted in Chandra Eggemeyer being hired this year to head up a new tourism and economic development office that is housed in the old Mulkey barbershop.

Lambert worked on a grant that got us a new (to us) trash truck, and he worked every day to try to find ways to spend the city’s money wisely.

He undertook a paving project on Fourth Street that was universally declared a flop, but the citizens still trusted him enough to approve a bond election for $700,000 to take on a new street paving project. That was later doubled when the board approved adding another $700,000 worth of water and sewer improvements to the project.

The city has had cordial relations with the Donley County Sheriff’s Office under Little, which is something that was soured by the previous administrator.

Responding to complaints about brown water, Little, with the board’s permission, contracted an engineer to study the city’s water system and make recommendations for improvements over the long term. The final report of that $25,000 investment isn’t even done yet, but it should show the way forward to address the problems that so many citizens have had for years.

Lambert was involved in our community like no other city administrator has been. He joined the Lions Club and volunteered for a vacant third vice president’s position and was to be our Boss Lion next summer. In fact, he volunteered every chance he got, putting out flags when other members couldn’t and providing programs for our weekly meetings.

Lambert, above all, was a gentleman, and those are in short supply these days. He was the type who would remove his hat when he met a lady, and he was always pleasant to be around. And with 20 years of municipal experience, he was a bargain for his salary of $50,000 plus benefits.

There is more that Lambert did, but I’m short on space. Suffice it to say, that I believe he was just hitting his stride in Clarendon, and if we could have only held on to him, we could have accomplished many great things.

But now we are set back… again.

For better or worse, the City of Clarendon was the talk of the town again last week. But this time it was not so much for the Board of Aldermen. This time it was breakdowns in our public waterworks.

A contractor damaged a waterline last Tuesday evening and, without going into all the gory details, the repair was fixed in a prompt and professional matter. The loss of pressure, however, meant that City Administrator Lambert Little had to follow proper procedure and issue a Boil Water Notice, something that was a bit of an inconvenience for folks until Thursday afternoon… but not as much of an inconvenience as having no water at all would have been.

There was a bit of hoopla over the boiling of the water, but for the most part people just went along and made the best of it.

Then over the weekend there were a couple of other water line breaks that affected people’s service and were repaired by our dedicated city workers. Those seemed to elicit more chatter from armchair experts who took to social media to criticize not just the speed of the repairs but also city government in general and the city’s sale of groundwater to Greenbelt Water Authority in particular. All of this over a couple of leaks that were repaired by guys working in cold, wet holes in the ground.

Perhaps it’s time we all learned something from those guys.

Despite adverse conditions, our public works department jumped in – literally – and did what had to be done to get things fixed. They did it because it is their jobs, and it’s what they do. Public Works Director John Molder’s crew seems to be a hardworking bunch of guys, and they clearly demonstrated that he has trained the well enough, they can get the job done without him looking over their shoulders. (Molder was on medical leave when all this static was going on.)

Molder’s men – like other city employees from the top down – don’t need microscopic oversight from the board of aldermen and they certainly don’t need second guessing from folks on Facebook who don’t have a clue what challenges they are facing in the field. They need support – from the board and from the citizens.

As we close out this year, it is a good time to put aside the bitterness that seems to permeate our community and focus on what we can do to support the men in the trenches who make this city work and what steps can be taken to move Clarendon forward.

The Board of Aldermen has an excellent opportunity to set that tone Thursday night, December 13, when they will meet in a re-scheduled regular meeting. They have a vacancy to fill with the resignation of Alderman Terry Noble, and that will be as good a time as any to begin unifying our community, which they can do with careful consideration of who they choose to appoint.

From there it is a matter of learning to all work together, to respect each other, and move forward… together. The members of our Board of Aldermen have it within themselves to do what is in the best interests of the city and to put aside any hard feelings or personal agendas.

And as citizens we must all do that as well. There are problems to be fixed if Clarendon is to be prosperous. Aging waterlines need to be replaced, other infrastructure issues must be addressed, and hardworking employees deserve respect, fair treatment, and wages commensurate with the value of their positions to this city.

All of that costs money, and we need to be willing to pony up some of it when it’s time to set the budget next fall. We have to invest in this city to make it prosper. But first we need to invest some faith in each other and learn to get along.

What do you expect from your city? Stop and think about that for a moment. As a community, where do we really want our elected officials to focus their energies?

The Clarendon Board of Aldermen last week spent a lot of time arguing over the authority of the city administrator – something we went through nearly a decade ago – and delving into the minutia of city business, discussing the finer points of when employees should take breaks and whether employees should be allowed to smoke on the job.

Considerable attention was given over to the per diem allowance that regular employees are allowed compared to the administrator’s expense account when he travels. In short, employees get $40 per day and Mr. Little had a receipt for $65 that covered two meals at a conference. (Of course, if you’ve been to a professional conference or convention, you know that meals of $20 to $35 are the order of the day and not at all unusual). But nevertheless, the aldermen found themselves caught up in a discussion over a tiny amount in a million dollar budget.

Attention to detail is one thing, micro-managing and second-guessing every decision that the administrator is making is quite another. No one can work efficiently if someone is breathing down his or her neck all the time.

The board also got into a discussion about a perception in the community that the city is broke. How can this be, they wondered aloud, when we have money in reserves? Perhaps it is because during the recent budget workshops, members of the board acted like the city was spending way too much money and just cut and cut and cut instead of making investments to improve our town.

They turned down a modest tax increase after public comments about what such an increase might do to senior citizens and the disabled, and yet both of those groups have their taxes frozen. Instead they raised sanitation rates on everyone in the city – including churches and non-profits. How much sense does that make?

The City of Clarendon has some very real issues, and they haven’t changed much in two decades. We need serious street repairs and our aging water and sewer system needs to be largely replaced. Pot holes and brown water – not the administrator’s expense account – are the recurring top complaints of citizens. We have dilapidated buildings and code violations and a whole host of other issues facing us, but we are focused on trivial issues and making no progress on the big picture.

Despite disagreements, your editor believes that we’ve got good people working for us on the city council, but they need to hear from the citizens about what is most important to them. To that end, we need more people to attend our city meetings to see for themselves what the discussion is. We’re stuck in a quagmire of minor issues right now, but with a little nudge the people can re-focus the city on big issues and move us forward.

That is not to say that we want them to pay no attention to the money or give the administrator total control. But we do expect to see the city run professionally and we want to see results on the major problems that are holding our town back. There is no standing still at this point. We either move forward, or we move backward. And we have to trust our city leaders to take us down the right path.

The impact of the President Obama’s re-election has draw some interesting reactions from the right.

On the most extreme side we’ve seen people calling for secession with people in almost every state going to the White House website to petition the president to let their state leave the Union. The petition for Texas has more than 117,000 signatures according to our latest information, which seems like a lot of people but really isn’t.

Texas has a population of more than 25 million people, so the petitioners are less than one-half of one percent of Texans. It’s hard to pin down since polls weren’t around back then, but by contrast it is believed that about 40-45 percent of colonists supported the American Revolution.

The thing that always amuses me about talk of secession is that automatic reactions that range from a) Texas reserved the right to secede as a condition of admission to the Union in 1845, to b) the Civil War and/or the Supreme Court has determined that no state can secede. Neither position is correct.

Owing to its size, the Congressional joint resolution admitting Texas to the Union does allow it the option of dividing into as many as five states, but it nowhere says that Texas can leave. On the other side, the failed War for Southern Independence showed that the north had a greater industrial capacity and military might than did the south, and, as far as the courts go, the federal government is never going to say it is okay for states to break away. But states certainly can secede, and history proves it.

If you read the Declarations of Independence of both the United States and Texas, then it is pretty clear the founding fathers were secessionists. They believed to the death that sometimes people may need to dissolve their political ties with governments that are abusive to their liberties. Indeed, Jefferson wrote that people have not only the right but the duty to throw off their oppressors. However, governments – from London to Mexico City to Washington, DC – never agree that their own subjects can secede.

Of course, just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you should. A free and independent Texas is fun to contemplate. The Lone Star is big enough to take care of itself, and it would be nice to see “a whole other country” that embraced liberty and limited government. Enshrine personal and economic liberty in law, join NAFTA to enjoy free trade with the US and Mexico, and watch a new national economy take off like a rocket. Unfortunately, with the ideologues we currently have running our state, it is very likely that a new Republic of Texas would be plagued by religious intolerance, a mediocre commitment to higher education, and political agendas in school curriculums. We would, however, have a balanced budget and sport very nice highways in Dallas, Austin, and Houston.

The question is moot though, because without a groundswell of popular support and the backing of prominent statesmen (who are in short supply these days), secession is an idea that is just never going to get traction.

On the opposite end of the spectrum in reaction to the president’s re-election, we see continued calls for “compromise” in Washington as the nation inches toward the so-called “fiscal cliff” – a series of automatic tax increases and spending cuts that will take effect in January and possibly throw the economy back into a recession. To that end, we are beginning to see some Republicans breaking away from the “no tax increase” stance, and the emboldened president continues to demonize the right, saying this week that the GOP will ruin Christmas if it doesn’t back down.

Will it never end? America doesn’t have an income problem; it has an expense problem. The government just flat spends too much money, and the best our “leaders” in Washington can come up with is a plan to save $1 trillion over ten years. How does that help us when we have a $1 trillion annual deficit and total debt of more than $16 trillion? We can’t tax our way out of that mess.

“Compromise,” it seems, is still a one-side proposition. There can be no solution to this disaster without reforming – and cutting – entitlements, namely Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. But Democrats have said those are off limits. The results will be that the Republicans will cave – as they usually do – and America will get a semi-solution that gets us past January. After that, “Dancing with the Stars” will be back for a new season, and politicians will be mostly quiet until 2014.

Meanwhile…

It now appears certain that Barack Obama will go down in history as one of America’s great progressive presidents. Like all presidents who fit in this category, he has expanded entitlements, grown the role of the government, become a savior to the down trodden, and has championed social justice.

Presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Baines Johnson have occupied similar statuses in the minds of the American public to the extent that they became known just by their initials – T.R., F.D.R., J.F.K., and L.B.J. As such it would seem fitting that, out of reverence, we henceforth refer to President Obama as simply B.O.