The Chinese language is filled with four-character phrases called "Cheng Yu" -- proverbial idioms. Native Chinese speakers can carry on entire conversatins by exchanging four-character phrases. Of course, the fact that a single Chinese character carries the same meaning of several English words helps keep the chengyu short and pithy but filled with meaning.
More below the fold.
For example:
"Yi yan wei ding" 一言为定 -- "One word will decide" -- Just say it and it's done; just say the word (and it's done).
"Yi ju liang de" 一举两得 -- "Move one gain two" -- Kill two birds with one stone.
One of my favorite chengyu I learned while studying Chinese (at Defense Language Institute, then in Taiwan) was: Qi hu nan xia 骑虎难下 -- literally, "Ride tiger difficult down." Translated into language the Old Redneck understands it means "Riding the tiger is a helluva ride but when you dismount, you have one pissed-off tiger on your hands."
The Republicans should have learned this chengyu. They have been riding the tiger for over 50 years now --
-- visceral Republican opposition to FDR, to whom they referred as "that man"
-- absolute opposition to the 40-hour work week, the Marshall Plan, and anything else FDR or Truman proposed
-- the stupid "who lost China" question in the early 1950's
-- Joe McCarthy and his lists of commies in the guvmint
-- Nixon's red-baiting that won him a seat in Congress
-- Nixon's "southern strategy" that filled the Republican Party with Jim Crow Southerners
-- Ronald Reagan announcing his candidacy in Philadelphia, MS
-- George Bush II and his "axis of evil," "if you're not for us you're against us"
-- the alliance between Republicans and the NRA, the "religious right," and the hate-mongers on talk radio and Fox
-- hate, hate, hate, fear, fear, fear
-- demonize everyone who has a different idea, who looks different, who talks different, who acts different
We saw a glimpse of what happens when you try to dismount from the tiger during the 2008 Presidential campaign when John McCain tried to explain to a woman that, no, Obama is not an Arab -- remember the expression on his face?? McCain suddenly understood what the Republicans had unleashed on themselves and he was scared shitless.
And now we have a full-throated Republican mob, stirred up by a half-century of hate and fear directed at anyone who is different from them, energized by a president who doesn't fit their mold of what a president should look like, and turned loose by the likes of Beck, Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, Malkin.
The GOP has been riding the tiger for a long, long time. The tiger is pissed and it's gonna be ugly -- very, very ugly.