Word: defend
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...people were saying, hey, explain these differences between you and Reagan. Dukakis and Bentsen have a litany of differences. You can just walk through them, whether it's MX missile, support for the contras, support for the Reagan tax cut, gun control in the Southwest -- imagine trying to defend a person who strongly favors federal gun control in Texas. I don't think Bentsen will try to do that in Texas...
...trigger the chase. It is the genius of John Cleese's plot to imagine them leagued together for a London jewel robbery, which they pull off perfectly. This is when Cleese, Monty Python's Minister of Silly Walks, enters the picture as Archie Leach, a barrister hired to defend yet another member of the gang. Though Cleese has written himself some nice screwball-comedy turns, Leach is no Cary Grant. He is really a grownup Tweety bird, an innocent with an iron will...
...rest of my life . . ." He was unable, however, to end his sentence there. Like good people who cause bad things to happen, he felt the need to explain and justify rather than putting a period after his grief: "but under the circumstances . . . I took this action to defend my ship and my crew." The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William Crowe Jr., used a similar yes-but formulation in saying, "We deeply regret the loss of life here, but that commanding officer had a very heavy obligation to protect his ships, his people...
...lesson properly taken from that incident was not that the U.S. was too vulnerable to remain, but rather that new rules of engagement were needed to allow ship captains more leeway to defend their crews against hostile forces...
Unfortunately for Rowan, that's the argument that the NRA has been making for years in its mailings, namely that our society cannot or will not protect average, law-abiding citizens from dangerous criminals, and that we must therefore defend ourselves, preferably, NRA gunslingers say, with our own Saturday Night Specials...