† An office he has not held in more than a decade, making it no longer necessary to address him as Mr. Speaker, just as we can dispense with addressing Mitt Romney as “Governor” or Rick Santorum as “Senator.”  American public offices are not like life peers in Britain.  Converting the titles that accompany office  into lifetime honorifics gives a field of candidates like the present one an unearned aura of continuing public service.  Romney, Gingrich and Santorum style themselves outsiders; let them live with an outsider’s title:  Mister.