George W.Bush's preferred way to achieve his ends is to select a small number of goals and pursue them relentlessly. If necessary, he will sacrifice lesser goals for the sake of what he regards as the more important ones. And since entering office, he has made it unmistak-ably clear that he means to lower federal taxes for the better off-- or, as the Republicans might put it, for the people most responsible for creating jobs and wealth.

　　Ironically, the tax burden of the extreme-ly wealthy is seldom heavy. People who can afford to hire shrewd lawyers and accountants often find legal loopholes enabling them to es-cape most federal taxes . The tax cuts that America's Republicans are now pushing through Congress will benefit the relatively wealthy -- but not the wealthiest.

　　Oliphant's cartoon takes us into a world like that of the immensely rich industrialists and financiers who were prominent in the early 20th century. The setting is a private mansion, with a servant carrying brandy on a tray. The tycoon on the right looks like an overstuffed reptile; he has the paunch that was deemed a suitable attribute of the powerful before the First World War, when "portly" men were ad-mired. (A modern tycoon, in contrast, would probably have a personal trainer to help him stay fit and trim; obesity is for the poor nowa-days.) He half-listens to the complaints of his decrepit fellow plutocrat, who -- poor fellow! -- is too rich to benefit from George Bush's tax cuts. The complaints continue in the lower left corner, where we see the same man declaring that he feels cheated.

　　The little bird speaks for Oliphant: "Rome wasn't wrecked in a day." (The usual proverb is "Rome wasn't built in a day.") The implication is that George Bush, the servant of the rich, is setting the stage for the decline of the Ameri-can republic (here the Rome of the proverb)by attempting to return it to what it was in 1903: a country for rich men, with ordinary citizens diminished to the status of servants.

　　①如果我早先交过税，那我这次也能得到好处了。

　　②我受骗了，这就是我的感觉！

　　③好啦好啦，罗马不是一天摧毁的！