Word: direness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...staff bases its position on the faulty reasoning that Judge Harmatz's decision was ipso facto legitimate and even-handed, and that the University's appeal would be union-busting of the most dire sort. But if one accepts that the NLRB judge has any legitimacy in the case, one must also accept that he could be fallible--especially after reading his obviously one-sided and almost hysterical decision--and his judgement worthy of appeal...
These are indulgences and impositions. And they subtly debase the courage in truly dire circumstances of the men and women at the film's moral core. They also divert us from Ophuls' central frustration. He clearly wanted to show that Barbie was protected by Americans and other friends in high places, but he cannot prove it. Barbie owed his long freedom to his own international underclass of thugs, ideologues and opportunists. It is as a reminder of that group's influence -- and not as an inflated moral statement -- that Hotel Terminus has its considerable, unintended value...
...Reform Act closed loopholes for the rich created by the 1981 Reagan tax cut and took millions of Americans living in poverty off the taxpaying rolls. The welfare reform legislation would provide direction to a system that liberals and conservatives alike agree is in dire need of repair. If that's mere politicking...
When Baker arrived as planned at Bush headquarters after the G.O.P. convention, he confronted problems far less dire than those that would later bedevil Sasso. One reason: as Tutwiler points out, the top Bush handlers have all fought side by side before. Until Baker took over, this teamwork was undermined by the lack of anyone in firm control of the campaign. Atwater had nominal top authority as campaign manager, but Bush insisted that all decisions be made by consensus. The result was the kind of paralyzing chaos that allowed the Dan Quayle nomination to bring the campaign to the brink...
...that." But, of course, he did. On the flight back to Boston, press secretary Dayton Duncan celebrated with a slug of bourbon: "We made the evening news." This, admittedly, was a paltry triumph for the nominee of a major party in September, but it conveys the dire mood that had prevailed in the Dukakis camp and the elation over the shifts that were under way. "This is not brain surgery," said Francis O'Brien, a Sasso recruit to the campaign. "Republicans have done it well for years...