Word: stockmans
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Here the subject is horses, which are metaphors of another color. In the Atlantic Monthly article, Mr. Stockman called the Reagan tax package a "Trojan horse" in order to indicate that what looked on the surface like a fascinating gift to the people in fact contained the instruments of their destruction. But clearly that was not what Mr. Stockman meant, since the tax package-if it was a deception-was designed to destroy only some of the people, i.e., the poor. For the rich the gift would be genuine. If, by using Troy, Mr. Stockman wished to convey the idea...
...question is: Would any metaphor have served Mr. Stockman's purpose? A stalking horse, perhaps-the animal that allowed a hunter to hide beneath its belly until he could get close to his quarry. But it would be more than Mr. Stockman intended to suggest that the tax bill was an accomplice to those seeking to devour the people. A snake in the grass, then? No, because a snake would be immediately recognizable as an enemy. Nor could the tax package be described as a fox in a henhouse, a dog in the manger, a bull in a china...
...reason that animal metaphors come to mind at all is that Mr. Stockman seemed to favor them in the Atlantic piece, along with agricultural imagery in general. (His name itself is an agricultural image.) At the news conference, he referred to having grown up on a farm, in order to introduce his metaphor of "a visit to the woodshed" that characterized his discussion with the President. That same farm upbringing may also explain why in the Atlantic interviews he remarked on "bullish forces," "pork barrels," "sacred cows," the closing of a program "cold turkey," the taking "something out of Boeing...
...piranhas were raised on the Stockman spread, but the farm comes into view: "The inflation premium melts away like the morning mist"; "all conventional estimates just wind up as mud"; "if there's a consensus, he [Reagan] is not going to buck...
Some of these images are as memorable as Haigspeak. At one point Mr. Stockman mentions the greedy "hogs" who, at another point, were "strung out on a limb." The Trojan horse metaphor is itself a bit mixed...