From: martinc@grover.cs.unc.edu (Charles R. Martin)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves,soc.singles
Subject: Re: Liberal Toadies
Date: 9 Nov 92 15:35:00 GMT
	<thurlow.720824262@convex.convex.com>
	<1992Nov4.124510.20760@dg-rtp.dg.com>
	<thurlow.721238301@convex.convex.com>
Followup-To: alt.peeves
Organization: UNC Department of Computer Science
In-reply-to: thurlow@convex.com's message of 8 Nov 92 15:58:21 GMT

In article <thurlow.721238301@convex.convex.com> thurlow@convex.com (Robert Thurlow) writes:


   In <1992Nov4.124510.20760@dg-rtp.dg.com> cochran@spam.rtp.dg.com (A. Jing Hippy) writes:
   [in reference to my quip about Bush not following up after the Gulf War:]

   >Wellllllllll..... he *is* (albeit briefly) Commander-in-Chief of the armed
   >forces, so what he says pretty much goes in that forum.  The same is not
   >true when he's dealing with congress.

   Most of the battle wasn't within the U.S. armed forces, it was on the
   international stage, and involved a great deal of successful cajoling
   and coalition building.  It seemed to show that he had powers of
   persuasion he was unwilling/unable to muster in dealings with Congress.

This is one of those things that's real hard to measure or handle in an
objective way, so consider this all data on what my perception is.  From
my point of view, it appears that "unable" is the correct choice.  It
also appears to me to be the result of perfidious duplicity -- gee I
like that phrase, I'll do it again -- perfidious duplicity on the part
of the Democratic Leadership in Congrefs.  

A stellar example of this is the budget deal: Bush said "no new taxes"
and (if you recall) there were immediate statements by the Democrats to
the effect of "He won't be able to do it."  Now, as you may recall, Bush
won the election, in part because people voted against a Democrat who
wouldn't promise no new taxes.  (At least he was slicker than the
previous one, who promised new taxes.)  The DL in C announced early in
the first term "No budget deal without new taxes."  There was a LONG
impass on the budget.  The DL in C made it real clear to the
rank-and-file that if they didn't vote with the DL in C that they were
gonna have offices in the basement and their phones would be cut off.
The Republicans in Congrefs couldn't pass a budget themselves, couldn't
even get their budget brought to the floor because the DL in C controls
the Rules Committee.  So no votes on Republican proposals.

Finally, to get a budget, there is a compromise: Bush agrees to new
taxes and the DL in C makes some concessions too.  There is much
hand-shaking and talk about Bush's statemanlike handling etc.  As soon
as the dust clears, the Democrats are talking about how Bush "lied"
about "no new taxes".

I can't prove that there was a concerted effort on the part of the DL in
C to embarrass Bush; I can't be sure that this was a calculated campaign
move (although I know this was suggested as a reason in the press); but
I am pretty certain that it was perfidious and duplicitous.

(For the dictionary-impared: "Perfidy" is "breach of faith" and
"duplicity" is "double dealing".)
--
		Charles R. Martin/(Charlie)/martinc@cs.unc.edu
     Dept. of Computer Science/CB #3175 UNC-CH/Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3175
	    3611 University Dr #13M/Durham, NC 27707/(919) 419 1754
     "Oh God, please help me be civil in tongue, pure in thought, and able
      to resist the temptation to laugh uncontrollably.  Amen." -- Rob T
Newsgroups: alt.peeves