Word: scheme
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...persist in being evasive about questionable episodes in their past. In Bush's case, it is what he knew as Ronald Reagan's Vice President about the Iran-contra scandal. His continued claim that he was "out of the loop" or "excluded from key meetings" when this murky, subterranean scheme was being hatched in the upper echelons of the Reagan Administration has been constantly challenged, notably by a 1987 memo dictated to an aide by former Secretary of State George Shultz...
...when, as always, an inch away from the top, he walks away from it. His stubborn attitude buffers Young's resolution at the end of the film, in which he comes to terms with his relationships and career. Buddy experiences contentment and even accepts his place in the grand scheme of things...
...first blush, Bush's plan strikes a chord: few who deal with the government regularly have a good word for those they encounter. On reflection, though, the President's scheme is a heartless swipe at a defenseless group of dedicated civil servants, designed to capture the knee-jerk support of an economically strapped electorate. "It may not be good policy," concedes a Bush adviser, "but it's damn good politics...
...President is serious, his scheme is wrongheaded for another reason: it undercuts his professed desire to "right-size" government. Immediately after proposing the pay cut, Bush called for "a streamlined reorganization of the Executive Branch through a consolidation of agencies and bureaus that will enable us to do our job better." He struck at the right culprit -- the bloated bureaucracy -- but his method is madness. "As Presidents have sought control of the governments they oversee, they have added increasingly redundant layers of middle managers at the expense of those who do the real work," says Paul Light, a public affairs...
...cynical you are, it's hard to keep up. The best that can be hoped for Bush's pay-cut plan is that the President doesn't intend it to be taken seriously, and that if he is re-elected it will be forgotten. In the meantime, the scheme should be seen as one more reason why so many doubt that Bush deserves a second term...