Word: charisma
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...pretty face, a pop-star aura and clichés about welfare, justice, freedom and change are all a candidate needs to lure ecstatic audiences into believing the new messiah has arrived. Obama's charisma obliterates the emptiness of his message. Too bad for Clinton. Her voice is too shrill, her laughter too loud and her tears too easy. Who cares about her profound knowledge, her long experience with Washington's maze and ways, and her useful insight into the Republicans' bag of tricks? Herman D'Hollander, Antwerp, Belgium...
...scholars of the presidency, Kennedy's failure to scuttle or fix the ill-conceived invasion of Cuba is a classic case of the insufficiency of charisma alone. No quips, grins or flights of rhetoric would do. Kennedy needed on-the-job training, as he later admitted to a friend: "Presumably, I was going to learn these lessons sometime, and maybe better sooner than later." Unfortunately, when a President gets an education, we all pay the tuition...
...moral of the Bay of Pigs is "Beware of charisma" or "Timeworn trumps callow," what do we make of the mistakes and miscalculations of deeply experienced leaders? Franklin D. Roosevelt's failed court-packing scheme, for example, or Woodrow Wilson's postwar foreign policy? For that matter, Kennedy would not have faced such a harsh early tutorial if the venerable warrior and statesman Dwight D. Eisenhower had not allowed the Cuba-invasion plan to be put in motion during the last of his eight years as President...
...intellectual references to art and religion, the party was a success for those who made the T ride. For those who didn’t (after all, getting to Faneuil Hall requires not only going into Boston, but changing trains!), remember that all it takes is an iPod and charisma to start your very own silent dance party. Rock on, Harvard...
This primary season has seen an unprecedented rise in Democratic voter turnout and the man to thank seems to be Barack Obama, whose charisma and message of political change has prompted a surge in grassroots political activism. But as gratifying as it is to see otherwise apathetic voters—especially students—getting excited about politics, much of the Obama grassroots has focused not on substantive policy-based support, but on mindless hero-worship. To see this phenomenon firsthand, there’s no better place to turn that than that ubiquitous record of the modern zeitgeist: Youtube.com...