Word: despairing
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That wasn't just Bennett's customary gravitas. It was the sound of conservatism in despair, a bewildered keening that could just as easily have come from Gary Bauer or Robert Bork or William Kristol. All year the political right awaited the moment when everyone would agree that Ken Starr's investigation was the institutional expression of a national consensus, namely that the President's relationship with Lewinsky was not simply wrong but criminal. That means it was something that it was the proper business of government to discover, interrogate, rip to pieces, expose and punish. What happened of course...
...What ever happened to the scarlet letter?" has become a major despairing theme of conservative political commentary. (Or, "Values, shmalues," as America's leading value peddler, William Bennett, summarized the apparent new culture consensus to the New York Times recently.) Social conservatives used to be smug populists who tarred their critics as out-of-touch elitists. Now they shoot furious thunderbolts at the formerly all-wise American people. Although the dismay of the sanctimony set is enjoyable to watch, their despair may be somewhat misplaced...
...purest, most photogenic state. Affliction dawdles over small-town life: lots of boozy bonhomie and dazed snarling. The raging losers here often seem like sullen stereotypes. We could also have done without Nolte's self-crucifixion scene. But the actor finds truth in Wade's emotional clumsiness, in the despair of a man who hasn't the tools or the cool to survive. There are too many of these men in life, and not enough films that tell their sad tales. That gives Affliction a therapeutic worth...
...Miller, Hanks has a moment when the burden of leadership in war has nearly broken him. He walks over a hillside from his fractious men (far enough away that no one will see him) and sobs (so softly that no one will hear him). He is discreet even in despair...
...DEANA CARTER Everything's Gonna Be Alright (Capitol) A queen of the four-minute soap opera sings about lovers and losers--her people are typically both--in a strong set that blends country, rock and power pop. In songs of dreams without fulfillment, hurt without despair, Carter makes a hard life sound beautiful...