Nixon is the kind of guy who, if you were drowning twenty feet from shore, would throw you a fifteen-foot rope.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- McCarthy compares Nixon to someone who throws a rope that is too short to save a drowning person.
- In plain terms
- Nixon offers help that does not actually solve the problem.
- What can you take from it?
- Superficial solutions do not help those in crisis.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Does Nixon offer real help?
- When is aid just symbolic?
Another view
The metaphor assumes the help was intentionally insufficient.
More from Eugene McCarthy
It is dangerous for a national candidate to say things that people might remember.
Permalink to quote #17 No man could be equipped for the presidency if he has never been tempted by one of the seven cardinal sins.
Permalink to quote #19 I can still smell the tear gas in the Hilton Hotel.
Permalink to quote #16
Related quotes
George W. Bush is a man who seems to be the center of his own universe. He seems to have learned little of human nature and even less of human history over his…
Robert ByrdRobert Byrd quote #1 This president is a miserable failure on foreign policy and on the economy and he's got to be replaced.
Dick GephardtDick Gephardt quote #2 The American, if he has a spark of national feeling, will be humiliated by the very prospect of a foreigner's visit to Congress - these, for the most part, ill…
Mary McCarthyMary McCarthy quote #2