YEN MAKABENTA
IT is a bribe,” says William Safire in his Political Dictionary. This used to be the time-honored way of determining whether something (money or kind) proffered to someone in public office, is a bribe. In that more honorable time, there was no smorgasbord of terms to choose from in naming the thing: incentive, reward, inducement, payola, and so on. It was simply and bluntly called a bribe.