I’m still steaming over the nutty code names the Secret Service has given to Barack and Michelle Obama.
Renegade and Renaissance? Are you kidding me?
Since the Obamas are occupied elsewhere these days, I am taking up the issue on their behalf.
First off, as code names they’re worse than clumsy — they’re not convincing. They sound like the krazy automobile names suggested to Ford by poet Marianne Moore back in the 1950s. Why not call Obama “Utopian Turtletop” and Michelle “Intelligent Whale” and be done with it?
How hard can it be to come up with short, punchy code names? There must be a whole branch of the CIA devoted to it. Couldn’t the Secret Service borrow a few?
I could pull better code names from practically anywhere. Jump back to automobile names, for instance. How about, say, Charger and Chevelle? Pacer and Pinto? Mustang and Malibu?
Or try original NHL hockey franchises: Ranger and Redwing. Early ABA mascots: Colonel and Cougar. (Well, Ms. Obama might object to that one.) Fast food: Whopper and Wendy. Cigarette brands: Viceroy and Vantage!
Any legitimate Secret Service agent would blush to mutter into a walkie-talkie, “Renegade and Renaissance are now leaving the building.” But “Mustang and Malibu”? That’s pretty cool.
And what better way to show solidarity with the struggling auto industry?
Got a better suggestion? Post it below.