Presidents and "Presidents"

In his brief posting Labeling Dictators, David Boaz notes the shameful way that dictators are often referred to in the media. The example he gives is noting that while Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay is remembered as a "military strongman", Fidel Castro is regularly referred to by his title of "President". Since I highly doubt that "Military Strongman" was Stroessner's official government title... one must wonder about this inconsistency. (Checking at Wikipedia... Stroessner's title was "President" as well.)

I've always noticed this, and it ticks me off. People like Castro, Saddam Hussein, and many others should not be referred to as "President". This does damage to the concept: it fuzzies the mind, blurs to gray what are black and white distinctions, and makes it easy to talk of dictators as though they are legitimate leaders who deserve a place at the negotiating table and a spot in international organizations and the like. They do not. The important distinction is between leaders who are elected by free and fair elections (even with relatively minor disputes in those elections arising from time to time)... and those who are in power through force -- whether they came to power through force, or in some cases were elected but then turned to force to retain their power. Terms like "President" and "Prime Minister" should be used for the former, not the latter. To allow the Castros and Husseins to use those terms is to give them a legitimacy they don't deserve.

And its not like the English language lacks a variety of terms that could be used instead. What dictators should be called, aside from "dictator", could include: military strongman, criminal, thug, tyrant, totalitarian, and many others. Where appropriate you could use "king/queen", because that usually provides additional information -- that the ruler is in power for hereditary reasons, which these days I hope has a negative conotation.

And of course there is always the option to simply refer to dictators as "leader" or "ruler" of their country. Ruler has a bit of a negative tinge to it, while Leader might be slightly positive sounding, but either are pretty neutral in my view. But the important point is that they don't conflate dictators with legitimately elected/chosen heads of state.