Word: bent
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Watt is the most controversial member of Reagan's Cabinet (every major conservation group and 40 members of Congress have called for his resignation) and probably the farthest right. Like the President, Watt is, above all, bent on reducing the power of the Federal Government. The anger he incites, however, stems not just from his prodevelopment, "free-market" policies at Interior but also from his preachy, pugnacious style. "Jim Watt just stimulates every single emotion," says Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, one of the Secretary's oldest friends. "People flunk the saliva test when they think of him: there...
Watt admits as much. After all, he says, "I have never had criticism from anybody I really respect." The problem is that for Watt, criticism and respect seem almost mutually exclusive. But even some allies have lost patience with Watt's combative bent. They regret, among other things, the political costs of Watt's proposal that snowmobiles and motorbikes be more widely permitted in national parks...
...making. After he was elected in 1979 as the successor to Kenya's legendary founding father Jomo Kenyatta, the new President was praised by observers for his relatively liberal approach to politics. But in the past six months Moi has shown an increasingly authoritarian bent. He has ordered the detention, without charges, of seven people, including four Nairobi University lecturers, presumably for expressing reservations about his rule, and the lawyer who took up their case. In June, after the country's most prominent left-wing tribal leader, Oginga Odinga (a member of Kenya's second-largest tribe...
...other people of power, like Mao Tse-tung, Kissinger stocked up on personal information about world leaders. He also supplied stories about the Ivy League, both good and bad, which the boss relished. Muskie twitted Carter about his inept fly casting but praised him for superb fly tying. Rusk bent to Kennedy's appetite for humor. Ordered to track down and fire a leaker, Rusk traced the culprit to the Oval Office. "I can't fire him, Mr. President," phoned Rusk. "It's you." They both roared...
...dismay of the authorities, many Soviet young people have turned away from the stuffy ideal of the committed Young Communist Leaguer that was fostered by their elders. Now two generations beyond the terror-filled Stalin era and the suffering of World War II, the young are bent on having fun in all the ways taught by Western movies, visitors and foreign radio broadcasts. In and around Moscow last week, youngsters were boardsailing, skateboarding and hang gliding; practicing yoga, karate, kung fu and fad diets; exchanging Bruce Lee posters; disco dancing; listening to tapes of Diana Ross and ABBA; and going...