Actually it is “pussyfooting” (one word but that’s OK). It gives me the opportunity to use the word, “pussyfooting” again—just to rub it in the people on their pompous high horses. See my post #80 for the what actually transpired with the shortened use of the word, “pussyfooting.”
Ted Cruz was a pussyfooter around the question about Water Boarding and Trump called him on it. In the Manchester NH speech the people of Manchester (and from beyond) told the nation that Ted Cruz was a pussyfooter.
I don’t think pussy is an abbreviation of pussyfooting at all. Pusillanimous means cowardly. This is exactly what the term means. If one intends to say pussyfooting they say pussyfooting, it doesn’t get shortened.
Pussyfooting is beating around the bush, not getting to the point. Being a pussy is far more cowardly than that. The term pussy has been in the “slang” vernacular for a long time, it is a well understood term that most people (wrongly) immediately equate with female genitalia.
>> Ted Cruz was a pussyfooter around the question about Water Boarding <<
I didn’t think that answer was too bad.
On the other hand, I think the worst “pussyfooting” by Cruz was when the moderator asked Cruz about his saying in Iowa that Trump lacked the “temperament” to be POTUS.
Cruz demurred awkwardly on the question, and it looked to me as if Cruz just didn’t have the cojones to say something to Trump’s face that he had said behind Trump’s back.
I’d still take Cruz over Trump any day. But that particular exchange was not exactly a display of Cruzian bravery. Pretty pathetic, if you ask me.