THE PRESIDENTIAL NAMING GAME
NAMING BUILDINGS, SCHOOLS AND streets after former presidents seems like a simple enough way to show respect and say thanks for years of service to the country. For instance, you have New York’s JFK International Airport, Reagan National in Washington D.C. and, it seems, everything in the Dallas and Houston areas is named after a Bush—airports, turnpikes, schools and parks all carry a Bush moniker. Even the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, is now officially dubbed the George Bush Center for Intelligence.
Good luck with the easy part, says Stanley Chang.
Six years ago, as a member of the Honolulu City Council, Chang offered up what he assumed would be a slam dunk: He wanted to rename a stretch of oceanfront on Oahu, a favorite body surfing area called Sandy Beach Park, for Barack Obama, the only U.S. president born in Hawaii. The beach, in fact, was a boyhood hangout of Obama’s. He even returned during an August 2008 respite from his first campaign for the White House, producing shirtless photos of the future POTUS in action for an Obama-thirsty internet.
The naming campaign, though, didn’t work out as hoped. Public reaction was swift and damning, with local residents assailing the plan as lacking “historical and cultural sensitivity,” according to the statement Chang and his co-sponsor released when they pulled their three-day-old proposal. In an interview with last month, Chang offered a different explanation, citing the beach’s tricky waves, which have caused
