Word: charming
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...taxes to lower the deficits, key advisers are not urging their boss to ease his rigid stance now. But without being disloyal, they are quietly prompting influential Republican and business leaders to make that case. So far, this campaign has had little effect. One problem is Reagan's charm. Observes one Senator about the persuaders: "They go in like tigers, but in the Oval Office they're pussycats...
...perhaps the real charm of the play is its elusiveness of view-point. If it seems at times to mock the absurdities of love--Matt exclaims of a wall the fathers built between the lovers' houses, "they built it ages ago... last month"--in the end, it reaffirms a sort of worldly-wise romanticism. In one of the funniest numbers of the play, El Gallo shows Luisa the splendors of the world, and gives her a mask to wear whenever a fire or assault mars the picture. Such sarcastic images continually surface whenever the play's world-view seems...
...Oliphant and Chris DeMoulin want to argue pop psychology. Speaking first, Oliphant launches an elaborate attack on stoicism, celibacy, alienation and the jut-jawed manner of one of his tournament hosts. Oliphant's rhetorical ripostes ("Will we sentence ourselves to joyless purgatory?") and practiced voice glow with persuasive charm...
Rahtz added that people may disagree with what he says, but still respect him. "If you went to lunch with him, he would charm your pants off," Rahtz said...
What 18-year-old would ever recover? Not Sheed; not quite, though he makes a heroic effort to reach back through the charm to the exemplary life. Clare Boothe Luce's legend, he reports, "could be studied like a Grecian urn, with her forever reaching or being reached for, depending on one's angle of vision." As for her admirers, "They were happy to celebrate her conversion, or her achievements as a Woman, or her spunky duels with F.D.R. in perpetuity. If she had gone out of existence like St. Christopher, they'd have kept...