Word: blunders
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...November 1979 to January 1981, thus dealing a severe blow to the re-election chances of Jimmy Carter. Then, in what began as an effort to secure the release of American hostages held in Lebanon, the Reagan Administration became enmeshed in the Iran-contra affair, its gravest foreign policy blunder...
These sentiments, however, are largely denuded of their political context. Rarely are they linked to any specific complaint about the conduct of the war -- a policy mistake or a battlefield blunder. It's just the eternal tragedy of war. At the same time, the angry pacifism once expounded by M*A*S*H (a TV series about Viet Nam that was set in Korea) has been tempered by sympathy for the average grunt. There is still a place, in TV's current view of Viet Nam, for courage in battle, duty and loyalty to buddies. At a champagne dinner...
...frustrated by the focus on his looks. Well aware of his image as a lightweight, he carefully prepped for his first solo mission as a diplomat, a three-day, largely ceremonial trip to Venezuela and El Salvador. Still, the Vice President's handlers were nervous about a possible blunder. When the chartered plane that was to carry nearly 50 reporters along on the trip was abruptly canceled, there were suspicions that the idea was to limit press coverage...
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir denounced Arafat's U.N. address as a "monumental act of deception" and called the U.S. decision a dangerous "blunder" that "will not help us, not help the United States and not help the peace process." Even Shimon Peres, the Foreign Minister who has struggled to devise a working peace plan of his own, considered the U.S. naive. "While other countries are expressing their views out of sincere hope, we express our views out of bitter experience," he said. Israel has cause for its unyielding refusal to trust the P.L.O.: 24 years of terrorist violence...
...education establishment has looked awfully happy lately," says Chester Finn Jr., an Assistant Secretary of Education under Bennett. "We need big changes, and the people running our schools are not inclined to make them." An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal was blunter: "This is the first major blunder of ((Bush's)) presidency...