This put the American government, hobbled by the need to demonstrate an "actual hazard" before acting, in an awkward position.
So the new administration will be less hobbled by having to please small parties than past Thai governments.
Last week, Mr Brown, a Democrat, declared it a symbol of the Kafkaesque bureaucracy that is hobbling his administration.
The stripped-down budget was intended to hobble the administration and compel the governor to enter negotiations with legislative leaders over additional money for schools and other programs.
Had Reagan and Ford managed to win the election, it's very likely that their administration would have been hobbled by an unworkable power-sharing arrangement.
The Bush administration, which has already hobbled programs that provide housing subsidies for the poor, is undermining the Community Reinvestment Act, the most successful community revitalization program in the nation's history.
And until the next Congressional election anyway, a Gore administration would be even more hobbled.
If it were ever defined, it could hobble the Bush administration's endorsement of pre-emptive strikes.
Several other weaknesses could also hobble the Calderón administration from the start.On November 21st Mr Calderón named six technocrats and academics to his economic team.
President Bush said on Friday that gasoline prices were high because refineries, which administration officials said had been hobbled by environmental laws, could not increase output.
