Word: trojan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...this mess. It seems that King Ronald on horseback proclaimed, "For the stopping of Christmas, I'll never be blamed. From those bad man in PATCO I'll lift my injunction, By gee and by golly--this Xmas will function." So he told David Stockman (on his Trojan steed), "Quick, print up the extra cash that we'll need." Happy that Yuletide by fortune was kissed, We began the long task of preparing our list...
...ADDITION to his considerable talents as a budget-cutter, David Stockman seems to have a gift for metaphor as well. By calling Ronald Reagan's supply-side economics program a "Trojan Horse" for the age-old trickle-down theory, he neatly captured its essential dishonesty and unworkability. But since Stockman also happened to be one of the chief purveyors of that program, the metaphor, however elegant, was bound to land him in a heap of trouble. Trouble came last week, in the form of a firm scolding by the president: the 34-year-old director of OMB barely escaped with...
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...
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...
...none of these things would have served Mr. Stockman one whit better than the Trojan horse image, which, in spite of its essential flaw, still combines deception with dignity. So does Mr. Stockman. Chagrined now, he turns his figure of speech against himself, contending that it is he who has assumed the role of the "wooden beast without a brain." But the image is inappropriate again. Mr. Stockman is far from brainless, and hardly a beast. He has simply risked his kingdom for a metaphor...