Word: weaseling
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...next national platform is to fight a sham battle because the 18th Amendment is here to stay and the quicker we recognize it the better." This year when the deluge started, Mr. McAdoo became less sure of the permanence of the 18th Amendment. He commenced mumbling the familiar weasel: "Referendum." After his party declared for Repeal, he went silent on Prohibition, left primary voters to guess what he favored...
Taxation: "We advocate maintenance of the national credit by a Federal budget annually balanced . . . within revenues raised by a system of taxation levied on the principle of ability to pay." The phrase "ability to pay" is a meaningless political weasel used to avoid taking a definite position on such hot issues as the Sales Tax, a broader income tax or higher surtaxes...
Privately French officials called this British statement a mass of weasel words uttered to impress U. S. public opinion but contrary to the letter of the Accord de Con fiance which Britain signed. What Europe owes, they asserted, most certainly "affects the European regime" and is therefore explicitly included in (not excluded from) the purview of the Accord de Con fiance...
Politically and practically the G. O. P. plank meant less than it said because all Republican candidates, as individuals, were specifically freed from its provisions. This was the weasel paragraph. President Hoover, as nominee for reelection, might, if he chose, disavow, his party's pledge on the ground that "his honest convictions" were against any change. Likewise G. O. P. nominees for Congress are not bound to vote for the new amendment. Thus the voters might return a Republican majority to the House only to discover that most of them had Dry "convictions," were able to block resubmission...
...President's position offered his party a serious difficulty. Resubmission, at best, is a weasel unless accompanied by a declaration in favor of a specific outcome. Herbert Hoover is against Repeal, hence favors retaining the 18th Amendment and is therefore rated Dry. What would happen, it was asked last week, if he "resubmitted" the issue to the people and they voted for Repeal...