A Horse in Sheep's Clothing

By Roger Rosenblatt

Nobody likes seeing a young man succeed, but nobody enjoys seeing him suffer either, so it was with eager pity that the nation watched David Stockman eat crow before the press last Thursday. Had Mr. Stockman talked less to the press earlier he would not be squirming now, but garrulity was not his blunder. Mr. Stockman's Administration-shaking mistake was not that he talked, but how he talked. He used a metaphor. Moreover, it was "a rotten, horrible, unfortunate metaphor," as he put it un-metaphorically in his news conference. Yet life would be no rosier for Mr. Stockman had his metaphor been lovely, wonderful and fortunate. For a politician there is no such thing as a fortunate metaphor.

For one thing, metaphors create images, and in a line of work that survives by means of obfuscation, images are land mines. A politician who uses even a perfect metaphor (far from which was Mr. Stockman's) is asking for a good deal of trouble because, if his judgment is wrong, people will not forget his imagery, nor will they let him forget it. A politician who uses a metaphor ineptly is in worse trouble still, because he will be remembered for being both vivid and confused--a condition not unknown among his peers, but of no personal advantage. The only politician ever to get away with the constant use of metaphors was Ike, and that was because he yoked imagery with obfuscation. Of the British he said: "They have a long row to hoe, and they're going to have trouble keeping their heads above water."

Of course, there have been a few truly sublime metaphors in political history: Lincoln's "house divided," Bryan's "cross of gold." Mao Tse-tung once said: "A revolution is not the same as inviting people to dinner," which is unarguable. On the whole, however, politicians have lost a lot more than they have gained by reaching for poetry. Warren G. Harding's Inaugural statement that he "would rejoice to acclaim the era of the Golden Rule and crown it with the autocracy of service" is still under review. William Howard Taft, when facing a challenge for renomination from Teddy Roosevelt, struck back, and told the New York Times: "I have been a man of straw long enough. Even a rat in a corner will fight." To confuse matters further, Roosevelt ran as a bull moose.

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 that the Reagan bill was a pig in a poke, he was backing the wrong horse.

But the 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 shop, or a bomb in a bull (though it has been called abominable). A wolf in sheep's clothing comes close. A horse in sheep's clothing is closer, if uncomfortable for the horse.

The 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's hide," as well as citing certain Southerners as "boll weevils," certain Republicans as "gypsy moths," and certain others as "piranhas."

No 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 it."

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.

The horse is supposed to represent the "trickle-down theory"--an image one would not wish to see too clearly.

So would it have been better to drop the horse and concentrate solely on mythology? At Michigan State University, Mr. Stockman switched majors from agriculture to history, and is no farm boy when it comes to the humanities. But the humanities can let you down too. He might have used the metaphor of Odysseus concealing himself under the rams in order to deceive the Cyclops, for example, but the purpose of that deception was escape, not gain. He might also have used the metaphor of Leda and the swan, Zeus taking the form of a swan in order to seduce Leda. In this allegory, the country plays Leda, Reagan the swan, and the act plays itself.

Yet 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.

What all this comes to, oddly, is that Mr. Stockman not only ought to have kept clear of metaphors, but would have saved himself a great deal of grief by using the familiar economists' talk that has effectively mesmerized the world for years. In the Atlantic, Mr. Stockman speaks of "mismanagement modality" and the "wrong atmospherics." Stick to that sort of language, and you cannot lose. In a way, Mr. Stockman is paying a penalty for wishing to sound more comprehensible, which seems unfair, but is, in his own words, how the world works. The danger of being comprehensible is that people will understand you. --By Roger Rosenblatt

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