The difference was that Mr Meany got a sympathetic hearing when he cited, as excuses, globalisation (though he did not call it that then), the shift from manufacturing to services, the mass entry into the job market of hard-to-organise women, the economic revival of the anti-union South and so on.
The unsavoury spectacle involved Densign White, the outgoing British Judo Association chairman, citing an excuse culture for the dismal display of other GB judokas and Winston Gordon, following his two wins on Wednesday in the -90kg.
The children's biological brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles refused to take them, citing the excuse that they were children from an alcoholic family, sickly and with emotional problems, while the relatives had their own families, children and problems.
One Norwegian cited, as an excuse for his performance, an overdose on porn.
"Bull!" a woman in the crowd exclaimed, as others groaned at the national security excuse cited by more hawkish lawmakers.
Back in the 1970s it was "cheap" Japanese labor, something that can no longer be cited as an excuse.
Often, engineers, with technical solutions in hand, delay implementation of new technologies until either litigation or legislation forces implementation, and a major excuse cited for preventing the implementation of available advanced technology is "lack of funding".
For example, in our school, pre-meds are often co-enrolled in genetics and organic chemistry and the demands of organic chemistry are frequently cited as an excuse for lack of time spent focusing on genetics.
