When he was called on his "Hillary" habit by a male news guest the other day, MSNBC's Chris Matthews huffed that he was only trying to distinguish her from her husband. Never mind that Bill Clinton was never Sen. Clinton or that Matthews never refers to any of the many other male contenders as Rudy or Barack or Joe or Mitt.

Words are always loaded and laced. I hear the Hillary and Mrs. Clinton thing as dismissive, whether intentionally or not. It pounds on my eardrum the same way it did recently when a local crusader against the Iraq war was described as a "63-year-old grandmother of five" as a means of marveling at the ambitiousness of her cause.

Who refers to Vice President Dick Cheney as "66-year-old grandfather of five"? Who knows, or cares how many grandkids Sen. John McCain has?

It's time to stop calling her 'Hillary' | The San Diego Union-Tribune