[Ads-l] "laws are like sausages"

[Geoffrey Nunberg]

A related and more (literally) pungent aphorism is frequently attributed to  Edouard Herriot (1872-1957): "La politique, c'est comme l'andouillette, ça doit sentir un peu la merde, mais pas trop.” Whether Herriot was the originator or not (perhaps it was a turn on the more familiar version, which Fred has traced in English version to 1869), it has the virtue of nodding to the public’s cynicism about the process. 

Geoff

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