Nicknames accorded by George W. Bush

It smells of a really misguided piece of advice from one of Poppy's advisors, a way of making our president more populist, more accessible. This is for him to give nicknames to everyone around him, which even the nickname recipients often do not understand. These are from the New York Times Week in Review (Feb 18, 2001), but I'm sure some more will surface in the coming (help!) four years of Dubya presidency...

Attorney General John Ashcroft- Snake Hips
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld- Chickenman
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman- Pistol Pete
Secretary of State Colin Powell- Bubblefoot
First Lady Laura Bush- Stretch
Russian President Vladimir Putin- Ostrich Legs
Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman- Bullet
Vice President Dick Cheney- Hopalong, or alternatively, Crash-Dive

There is also an aid Frenchy, there are Knuckles, Bones, The Eskimo, Skeezix, The Undertaker, Stilts, and a cabinet member Spinach Man. And Bush has a friend named Darryl whom he calls The Big Goober. This is why we call him The Embarrassment.

W's penchant for assigning nicknames is not a bit of false populism, sadly. Perhaps symptomatic of his inability to take anything seriously or understand appropriate behavior. It goes back (at least) to his college days and his frat. It seems that it's his way of "connecting" to people. There are news mentions of the habit dating back to his time as Governor of Texas. I've worked with people like that. People like The Copy Guy. Interestingly, one of Bush's nicknames for Rove is "turd blossom".

According to news reports, most foreign leaders consider this "character trait" to be insulting.

Keepersoflists provides a counterperspective, with the top nicknames for Bush:
The Global Village Idiot
Dumbya
Mr. 'Strategery'
All your w are belong to us
Hail to the Thief!
Daddy's Boy
The Resident
The Shrub
The Chadmeister
Commandanter In Chieflyness
Junior
Richard Cheney (you said President, right?)
Puppet
Eco Terrorist
Lord Vader
The Wimp in Chief

From whitehouse.org (the challenge is to figure out which ones they made up, and which are real...):

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon. Today, in the interest of desecretizing my trademark approach to political bipartisanship and international diplomacy, I have assembled a comprehensive list of the folksy, affectionate monikers I bestow on those persons of whom my advisors wish me to be aware. They are as follows:

UNITED STATES:

• Laura Bush: "Pickles"
• Jeb Bush: "Gator"
• Dick Cheney: "Mr. Cheney, Sir"
• Bill Clinton: "Fat Chick Fucker"
• Hillary Clinton: "Senator Carpetbaggermuncher"
• Ann Coulter: "Gash Limbaugh"
• Tom Daschle: "Asshole"
• David Duke: "Brother Sheets"
• Ari Fleischer: "Cue Ball"
• Barney Frank: "Froot Loop"
• Dick Gephardt: "Lady-brows" NOTE: When together, Gephardt and Frank are known as "Blondie and Fagwood"
• Ruth Bader Ginsberg: "Lezzie the 4-Eyes"
• Al Gore: "Mr. Poopy-Pants-Loser-Dickhead-Sucker"
• Billy Graham: "Grandpa Moses"
• Katherine Harris: "Avon Lady"
• Dennis Hastert: "Penis Hastahurt"
• Charlton Heston: "Grandpa Ramrod"
• Karen Hughes: "Butch"
• Ted Kennedy: "Life Guard"
• Henry Kissinger: "Jewboy Classic"
• Kenneth Lay: formerly "Kenny Boy," but now "That guy everyone's yapping about"
• Joe Lieberman: "Jewboy 2000"
• Rush Limbaugh: "Phen Phen"
• Trent Lott: "Dippity-Do"
• Mary Matalin: "Houdini"
• Ralph Nader: "Jackpot"
• Peggy Noonan: "Shakespeare"
• Oliver North: "Colonel Mum's-the-Word"
• Sandra Day O'Connor: "Sister C-Cup"
• Colin Powell: "Boy"
• Dan Quayle: "Professor"
• Ronald Reagan: "Forget-Me-Not"
• William Rehnquist: "Leader of the Pack"
• Ralph Reed: "Kid Klinefelter"
• Condi Rice: "Tar Baby"
• Karl Rove: "Mr. President"
• Donald Rumsfeld: "Duke Nukem"
• Antonin Scalia: "Pitbull the Dago"
• David Souter: "Daddy's Little Traitor"
• Jimmy Swaggart: "Motel 6"
• Clarence Thomas: "Long Dong Slivva"
• Oprah Winfrey: "Chocosaurus"

INTERNATIONAL:

• Bertie Ahern: "Potato McDrunky"
• Kofi Annan: "Buckwheat"
• Yasir Arafat: "Picnic Basket Head"
• Tony Blair: "Sissy Pants"
• Silvio Berlusconi: "Garlicko"
• Jacques Chirac: "Froggy le Poodle"
• Jean Chretien: "Governor 51"
• Kim Dae-jung: "Dog Breath"
• Tayyip Erdogan: "Butterball"
• Pablo Escobar: "Candy Man"
• Vicente Fox: "Frito Bandito"
• Tarja Halonen: "Who?"
• John Howard: "Dingo-Berry"
• Saddam Hussein: "Plan B"
• Hamid Karzai: "Pinocchio"
• Ayatollah Khamenei: "Ass-a-hola Cockamamie"
• Junichiro Koizumi: "Chopstix"
• Aleksander Kwasniewski: "Kaiser Kielbasa"
• Hosni Mubarak: "Pharaoh Hos-Mu"
• Pervez Musharraf: "The Pervertster"
• Pope John Paul II: "Hunchy the Popo"
• Vladimir Putin: "Pooty Poot"
• Muammar al-Qadhafi: "Momo al-Labia"
• Prince Abdullah Saud: "Your Royal Highness Prince Abdullah Saud, Sir"
• Gerhard Schroeder: "Herr Gerschtrapo"
• Ariel Sharon: "Gefilte Fuck"
• Jiang Zemin: "Jiang the Chicken Wiang"