Word: gargantuanism
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Democratic National Chairman Paul Kirk had created the opening. Kirk decided that a crafty way to debunk the charge that Democrats promise everything to everyone was to shrink the normally gargantuan party platform to a brief statement of principles. That seemed logical enough, but the ploy reinforced the claim by George Bush that Michael Dukakis is a "Stealth candidate" who ducks specific positions. So when Republican drafters went to work, they produced a 30,000-word monster, nearly ten times the size of its Democratic counterpart...
Carlucci indignantly rejects any thought that this pattern is applicable to the U.S. today. It is "ridiculous," he says, "to say that our country cannot afford 5.9%" of gross national product, approximately the current rate for national defense. Yet Congress is reflecting a judgment that gargantuan deficits ($147 billion this year) will eventually cripple the economy. They cannot be significantly reduced without a whack at planned military spending, which constitutes 27% of the entire budget...
...Sears, K mart or other established chains. But now Wal-Mart is expanding menacingly into several larger cities, including a few choice locations in K mart's home state of Michigan. At the same time, Wal-Mart has opened European-style hypermarkets in Garland, Texas, and Topeka, Kans. These gargantuan stores, covering some 220,000 sq. ft., sell everything from clothing to car supplies to groceries under one roof. In response, K mart plans to open some hypermarkets...
...straining with all her 106-lb. might to maneuver 61 ft. of tractor-trailer into a parking space that doesn't look large enough for two Corvettes. Like most novice truck drivers, she is confronted by too many tasks demanding simultaneous attention: eyeballing six side-view mirrors, working a gargantuan steering wheel and a muscle-wearying clutch pedal, and monitoring an instrument panel befitting a 727. Goodrum eases the rig back until . . . kerplunk, she mashes into a barricade of tires...
...United States found herself unchallenged as the most powerful country in the world and, indeed, in history. But Japan and Europe have rehabilitated themselves and are now eroding American economic strength, while the United States has expanded its overseas commitments and wasted its resources in fruitless wars. The senselessly gargantuan Pentagon budgets of the 1980s are testament to America's desparate attempt to maintain a hegemony that can no longer exist...