This does not necessarily make the country a pitiful, helpless giant.

Remember the pitiful, helpless American giant of the 1980's, with its butterfingered, inept work force?

In 1970, President Richard Nixon warned against America's becoming a "pitiful, helpless giant" and a "second-rate power."

If he did not, he said, America would be "a pitiful, helpless giant."

To the contrary, he implied that victory was essential to our credibility - to our not being seen as a pitiful, helpless giant.

Suddenly the world seems littered with pitiful, helpless giants.

Now we see popular movements everywhere turning governments into pitiful, helpless giants.

He said it was necessary lest the United States be seen as "a pitiful, helpless giant."

Today, President Bush acts as though the U.S. were a pitiful, helpless giant in Cambodia - and a confused one at that.

Without the backing of a congressional and popular majority, the commander in chief was the "helpless, pitiful giant" of Nixon's rhetoric.