Word: bluntly
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...visit to a Muslim country since becoming Pope last year, he is unlikely to cloak himself in a downy banner of brotherhood, the way his predecessor did 27 years ago. Instead, Benedict, 79, will arrive carrying a different reputation: that of a hard-knuckle intellect with a taste for blunt talk and interreligious confrontation. Just 19 months into his tenure, the Pope has become as much a moral lightning rod as a theologian; suddenly, when he speaks, the whole world listens. And so what takes place over four days in three Turkish cities has the potential to define his papacy...
...question of whether Islam was a "religion of peace"--as George W. Bush, among others, has always stressed-- by saying, "Certainly there are also elements that can favor peace." When he met with moderate German Muslims in the city of Cologne that August, Benedict delivered a fairly blunt warning that "those who instigate and plan these attacks evidently wish to poison our relations." In Rome, he removed Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, a relatively dovish Islam expert, as head of the Vatican's office on interreligious dialogue and replaced an ongoing study of Christian violence during the Crusades with one on Islamic...
...With Democrats doing their best to project the notion that they've found and embraced the center of American politics, what kind of message would it send if the party picked Murtha, a blunt confrontational figure who last year called for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, over Hoyer, a leader of the moderate wing of Democrats in the House? And surely Pelosi, known to have frosty relations with Hoyer, whom she defeated in a bitter House leadership race in 2001, doesn't want to give the impression she'll dump any member of the Democratic leadership that she doesn...
...such as the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill that President Bush pushed them to approve, happened before Boehner was in the leadership. And Boehner is famous for having never asked for any wasteful pork-barrel projects for his own district, a stance many fiscal conservatives like. Missouri congressman Roy Blunt, who will face Shadegg in the race for Majority Leader, will have a more difficult task running a campaign as a change agent, since he's been in the House leadership for several years; in fact, he lost the race for Majority Leader to Boehner earlier this year primarily because...
...Others are more blunt. "If the U.S. withdraws, Iran takes over - it is as simple as that," says Dr. Mehdi al-Hafed, a prominent MP from former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's secular block and one of Iraq's most respected politicians. "The Americans have to ask themselves if such an outcome is acceptable to them...