That title is meant to be spoken in the “Golly, gee willikers!” type of 1950’s Ron-Howard-as-Opie voice we all learned to know and detest on old weekday re-runs, back before gameshows, Divorce Court, and Oprah took over the airwaves. Well, I learned to detest it, anyway. If you’re under 30, you probably have no memory of that. Lucky you.

So anyway, some folks have what’s called an “I Love Me” wall in their office. It’s the one where they put up all the certificates, awards, plaques, trophies, and everything else they’ve ever been given or won. Now the exact motives for that are often at variance, but the basic motivation is always the same: Pride. Someone’s damn proud of the job they’ve done, and they want you to know it. The absolute top prize in this catagory isn’t something the hang on the wall, though, nor a case to sit in front of it and house all your other trophies. It’s the wall itself–and the building it’s attached to. Getting it named after you, well, that’s the biggest trophy of all.

And it’s got to be a building. I mean, I could say I drove over the “Sidney Sherman Bridge,” and maybe one person in ten (from Houston) would know which one I mean. And how many of you have ever had a desire to roll your eyes at the absurdity of the “Juan Seguin Memorial Interchange?” But everyone would know instantly when I say “Bush Intercontinental” what I mean. Well, technically, that’s a whole complex of buildings and such, which is an even bigger prize than a mere building. So maybe that should be the top prize? Let me think about this…. Houston was named after some Sam that lived in the 19th century. Washington (state) was named after a guy called George. And when you get down to it, “America” is, at it’s base, taken from a mapmaker and braggart named Amerigo Vespucci. Ok, so maybe a mere building isn’t top prize. But it’s the highest prize that anyone can reasonably aspire to these days, I feel certain.

Now back in the old days (circa 1985), there was an ettiquite to this practice. To get a building named after you, you had to have one major qualification: You had to be dead. It’s not like it was a difficult qualification to obtain, but there was also a special qualification, and that varied. Not only did you have to be dead, but you had to qualify as: a politician, an artist, famous, rich, a really smart scientist, a tragic death, or something similar. I remember when my college built a new band building, they named it something snazzy, like “the band building.” The students groaned at the inventiveness, and joked that the administration was only waiting on the band director to die so they could name it after him. Aside: we had a helluva underrated band and drill team. They were better than the state’s biggest college, an SEC member, could boast. Way better.

How silly of us — they eventually named it after a donor, much later. Using dead people may solve any arguments between live egotistical candidates, but money simply trumps them. It was many long years before I became wise in the ways of the college endowment.

But then came the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavillion, and I discovered something new: that the “dead” rule only applied to politicans. Rich folks didn’t have to be dead. I thought it was pretty tacky, and I recall a few people commenting that it was normal to name stuff after dead people, or maybe it was just me commenting to everyone else.

Quickly afterwards though, things went downhill from there. Bush 41 was barely out of office when the airport was named after him. A few eyebrows were raised, but since then, “admirers” have named other buildings after live politicians, or anyone else the owners felt to be a likely candidate. After all, dead people may argue, and live donors may give you money, but live politicians can give you other people’s money. Lots of it. So the sucking up commenced.

Tomorrow, another step forward into the bold new world of political uberclass will be taken. As the Club For Growth reports, Senator Thad Cochrane has named a building for himself. Or seen to it that it will be. Language inserted into the corporate agribusiness subsidy & welfare program agriculture appropriations bill, to be voted on tomorrow, reads:

The Federal facility. . . known as the “Southern Horticultural Laboratoryâ€?, shall be known and designated as the “Thad Cochran Southern Horticultural Laboratoryâ€?…

(Ellipsis mine.)

Yes, that’s right. Senator Cochrane of Mississippi, the chairman of the Appropriations committee, member of the Agriculture Appropriations sub-committe, has given himself an “I Love Me” building in his home state.

Tacky. I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking that’s a nice piece of pork to go after… Mmmmmm. Bacon. Too bad this is in Poplarville, MS instead of Macon, GA. Then we could be makin’ bacon with Macon. (Fans of the South Park DVD’s will get it.)