Winter slow-walks in the halls of power
Winter isn鈥檛 always the best time of year to get regular exercise. But I keep seeing references to an activity apparently as well suited to the corridors of power in Washington as to the snow-slushy streets of Boston: the slow walk.听
In mid-January, for instance, the Washington Examiner ran a headline, 鈥淒emocrats pledge to slow-walk Trump鈥檚 nomination votes.鈥� Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer had announced a plan 鈥渢o drag out the confirmation process鈥� for several cabinet nominees.
The Democrats 鈥渉ave little power to stop nominees from clearing with a simple majority vote in the GOP-led Senate,鈥� the Examiner noted. 鈥淏ut they can drag out the process for weeks....鈥�
Ah, but slow-walking is a winter sport for both parties. A recent New York Magazine piece suggested that the Republican leadership of Congress, which has not been united in its enthusiasm for investigating White House dealings with Russia, has also been promenading .听
It cited writer at large Frank Rich asking rhetorically: 鈥淗ow long will Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and their peers continue to slow-walk or kill any investigations into this morass?鈥�
And as reported by the Chicago Tribune, Sen. Dick Durbin (D) of Illinois predicted that Congress would 鈥渟low walk鈥� any such investigation.听
recently referred to two tempos in advising the White House: 鈥淪low-Walk the Executive Order Appeal, Fast-Walk Gorsuch Nomination,鈥� as the National Review summarized his counsel in its headline.听
The National Review notwithstanding, the more familiar opposite of 鈥渟low walk鈥� is 鈥渇ast track.鈥� But the underlying metaphor of steps forward along a path 鈥� always upward, let鈥檚 hope 鈥� is so ubiquitous in our language that we overlook it, even as the very literal sense of 鈥渟teps鈥� is alive and well. Think of all those Fitbit users, wondering whether they鈥檝e taken their 10,000 steps for the day.听
The language maven William Safire surmised that 鈥渟low-walk,鈥� in the sense of delay, has its roots in Tennessee, with its tradition of walking horses and racing. In a 1998 column, he cited the late Sen. Fred Thompson (R) of Tennessee complaining about the Clinton White House: 鈥淲e have been slow-walked and deferred and had objections every step of the way.鈥澛�
Slow-walking is less about an exercise of power than of resistance. Resist, according to , comes from the Latin resistere, 鈥渢o make a stand against, oppose....鈥� Or to withstand, we might say, if we wanted to stick with Anglo-Saxon vocabulary.
, of course, does not mean the same as 鈥渢o stand with,鈥� as in 鈥淲e stand with our neighbors after their great loss.鈥� It鈥檚 a in which with retains its original meaning of 鈥渁gainst鈥� 鈥� as in withhold and withdraw 鈥� and suggests a more successful pushback than .听
But I digress. Back to that slow walk we were taking: Slow-walkers are arguably conceding a need for some movement, even as they wish they could simply stand firm.
