Word: cannon
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...away from the politicians. He played over the heads of the joint congressional committee, aiming his passionate rhetoric and complex charm at the 50 million people watching on television, the real audience and jury at the proceedings. The obscure, middle-level NSC staff member -- said to be a "loose cannon," an aberrant zealot from the White House basement -- did not behave like a guilty character caught at misdeeds, like a raccoon startled by a flashlight in the middle of the night...
They touched off a cannon about noon and fired the crematorium, sending dark smoke into the clean blue sky. "He would have loved this," said one of the directors from Halifax. When the flames burned low, there were rainbows round . the sun, and the clouds the smoke had formed were multicolored. A student said she wouldn't be surprised if they had put chemicals on the fire...
...Justice John Paul Stevens, the dissenters branded the decision a "loose cannon." They charged that it would discourage the passage of important land regulations, "even perhaps in the health and safety area," and predicted that it would generate a swell of unproductive litigation. Indeed, the court returned the Glendale suit to California courts to determine whether the stringency of the county ordinance amounted to a confiscation or whether the ban was a reasonable safety regulation...
...policy of mine not to ask questions" echoed the attitudes of other witnesses. Even Cabinet officials showed little curiosity about the questionable activities of their subordinates or timidly shrugged off decisions with which they sharply disagreed. Secretary of State George Shultz, for example, termed North a "loose cannon" and told Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams to "monitor Ollie." But Abrams testified that he merely asked North if he was doing anything illegal. Like Hall, Abrams said, "I was careful not to ask Colonel North questions I did not need to know the answers...
...Abrams himself had requested a contribution of $10 million from the government of Brunei, but he testified last week that he was not "authorized" to tell Congress the truth on the matter. Abrams also told the panel that Secretary of State George Shultz considered North to be a "loose cannon" and that he had been instructed by Shultz to "monitor Ollie." Yet, Abrams said, "I was careful not to ask Colonel North questions I did not need to know the answers...