Word: awfulness
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...charm have tended to overshadow all but the most transcendent election issues. But in an era of peace and at least a veneer of prosperity, the 1988 campaign has so far been dominated by slogans and sound bites masquerading as substance. Small wonder that, after two terms of aw-shucks Reaganism, the electorate seems to be measuring Bush and Dukakis by the same standards they assess Bill Cosby -- comfort and likability...
...eulogist, Lynne Warren, noting Sultan's commitment to formal painting and his commendable lack of interest in grabbing quotes from visual mass media, winds up with the startling claim that "his works are meditations on the possibilities of transcendent meaning for an audience that has forgotten . . . how to believe." Aw, come on. There is nothing "transcendent" about Sultan's work. It is decorative and materialistic. Most of its motifs come from photographs, not direct observation; its style is distanced and gloomily elegant, enlivened by discreet erotic puns between, for instance, lemons and breasts...
...means "influence peddling." To others Strauss has become, at 69, Washington's pre-eminent cutter of Gordian knots. And if a deadlock develops at the Democratic Convention this summer, some Washingtonians think Strauss will be the keeper of the keys. In fact, a few of his closest friends -- with aw-shucks encouragement from Strauss -- want him to be the nominee...
...charm, but North still almost always got his way with Poindexter. Among his male colleagues, North could swear like a dirtwater Marine, but when a woman entered the room, he cleaned up his speech. Says one woman at the White House: "With women, he did his Gary Cooper, aw shucks routine...
...table to table, hands outstretched, making fingertip contact with smiling ladies at a luncheon in Manchester, N.H. An elderly woman grabbed him by the sleeve and yanked him to her side. "There are too many foreigners buying up our land," she complained. He bent down next to her chair. "Aw, come on," he chided, "don't look at it as a zero- sum game. We want people to invest in America." She listened sullenly as he tried to explain his vision of an unfettered free market. "Well, you think about it," she interrupted, shaking her finger. He masked his exasperation...