Word: watt
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...That happened to be a totally incongruous event, a welcoming address to 200 women leaders of Christian evangelical groups visiting Washington. After the usual innocuous pleasantries, the President told the churchwomen that he had reviewed the qualifications of "more than two dozen fine potential nominees" to succeed James G. Watt as Secretary of the Interior and settled on a man whose name was not on that list: National Security Adviser William Clark...
...reason for the shock: the National Security Adviser's job is potentially one of the most powerful in the nation and indeed the world. The Interior Secretary's task of managing the Federal Government's vast landholdings, for all the explosive controversy that Watt brought to it, has considerably less than globe-girdling impact; it is of interest primarily to the Western states...
Clark could probably answer those questions today. But as his luck would have it, Reagan's National Security Advisor has been nominated by the President not to assume his old post at the State Department, but to replace James Watt as Secretary of the Interior. It's as if Clark had transferred into a new course right before the final and had to catch up on a term's reading in a matter of days. And Clark's major has been anything but environmental studies...
When, on the other hand, a Watt makes jokes such as his latest, he becomes an object of contempt, because it is clear from his timing, context and formulation that he feels no sympathy whatever with the viewpoint of his critics nor with their having an opposing viewpoint. In truth, the wisecrack about the coal-leasing commission could have amused only those who see affirmative action as a wrong idea that is not funny, rather than as a right idea that may also be funny. One cannot know without inspecting the Interior Secretary's interior if he personally abhors...
...wife once tried to cure her husband of violent swearing by repeating verbatim a long stream of curses he had just let fly. Twain looked at his wife condescendingly: "Honey, you know the words, but you don't know the tune." In a sense, that is true of Watt, although it is unclear that if he knew the tune he would choose to play it. Comedy unveils the soul, but dimly. Still, if Watt resigns this time, or next time, assuming there will be one, it will not be because he had a weak sense of humor...