Word: affairs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Democratic Conventions usually mean funny hats and bitter spats. Typically, they are ornery, out-of-control encounter sessions populated by overweight, cigar-puffing pols and eccentrically dressed activists shouting indecipherable slogans. But this affair was so organized it was downright Republican. Pearls and silk dresses were as much in evidence as bizarre headgear. No cigar haze wafted to the ceiling: the party made this its first no-smoking convention. . The aisles were crowded, but the speaker did not pound his gavel and yell for the marshals to clear them. The clusters around the states' computer terminals resembled Wall Street trading...
...role in the gulf war did not come without a price, monetarily and otherwise. Tehran's voracious appetite for weaponry with which to wage the conflict led directly to the Iran-contra affair, the secret attempt by the Reagan Administration to ransom U.S. hostages in Lebanon with arms for Iran. In 1987, largely to prevent the Soviet Union from assuming a greater role in the region, Washington agreed to reflag Kuwait oil vessels with the Stars and Stripes and escort them through gulf waters under U.S. naval protection. That decision sparked some Democratic demands for Reagan to seek congressional approval...
...Wharton-Fullerton correspondence makes this book more than simply a companion to R.W.B. Lewis' Pulitzer-prizewinning Edith Wharton: A Biography (1975). Her affair with the journalist was no secret to intimate friends or later biographers, but her private responses to it were. And the dignified vulnerability she displayed during this period softens the austere image she cultivated during her 75 years. The regal bearing and the profile with its generous, slightly prognathous jaw remain intact. It is now possible to see with what effort, and after what struggles, she held her head so high...
...ultra-liberal. Yarborough kicked up dust as well, calling the Bentsens a family of land frauds and exploiters, a reference to lawsuits that were filed against the senior Bentsen and settled out of court. Bentsen's successful general-election race against George Bush was a much more genteel affair: a Houston insurance millionaire and a Houston oil millionaire did not have much to argue about, at least back then. Bentsen won, 53% to 47%, a reflection in part of the huge Democratic majority in Texas...
...Bentsen was just one of many Senators offering access for money in one of the many variations that hover this side of illegality. But the baldness of the approach and the fact that he had no real re-election challenge that required raising the money caused the Eggs McBentsen affair to unleash a storm of criticism. Bentsen quickly disbanded the club, called the mistake a "doozy," and returned the money. The episode did not cramp his fund-raising ability: he has raised over $5 million for his 1988 Senate campaign. It did, however, give Bentsen a bit more caution, which...