Word: dirksen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When I was a U.S. Senate page boy years ago, we took particular delight when Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois rose to speak. He was one of the last great American orators, given to decanting recondite vocabulary from his quivering basset's jowls. Fustian emerged in a sepulchral purr...
Would he criticize an erring colleague? "I shall," Dirksen would promise, in a voice like the finest whiskey aged in fog, "invoke upon him every condign imprecation." Dirksen was especially toothsome when praising the fig newton, manufactured in Illinois. "A man who has not sunk a molar into a fig newton," Dirksen would announce, his gray-golden ringlets vibrating with emotion, "has let much of life pass...
Even then, Dirksen knew that, with television, public speaking as high art had passed into decline in America. Dirksen gave oratory a humorous afterlife as self-parody, a touch of W. C. Fields. Orators gave way to communicators (not the same thing) - the geniuses of the form being Ronald Reagan and (because of his magnificent crowd sonar) Bill Clinton...
...anything, this scenario seemed to favor Harvard, as the Crimson doubles teams had been strong all year. Despite their advantage on paper, however, all three of the Harvard duos faltered in Hanover. The Big Green senior tandem of Dirksen and Allison Taff defeated Bajin and Ghazal by an 8-3 margin...
...Dirksen had only recently returned to doubles play after her previous injuries, but she and Taff won their fourth straight match with relative ease, and Dartmouth seemed poised...