Word: dourness
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Everyone who knows the dour-faced Hanssen professed astonishment that he could be one of the great spies of the age. What, we want to understand, makes a man betray, and how did he get away with it for so long? Here, from the 100-page affidavit filed by prosecutors and from TIME's own sources, is the story behind the alleged case against Hanssen...
...numbers and common sense go, the Democrats' response was solid. But in terms of political dexterity or public relations acumen, it was a bust. Daschle and Gephardt's dour response to Bush's ebullient address to Congress should serve as a stark reminder to Democrats still trying to decipher Gore's loss to Bush: Most Americans don't need or want to be reminded that life is hard, money is tight and things could be better. The gloom and doom implicit the Democrats' message may, in fact, be more realistic than the goofily optimistic tone Bush likes...
...Though on TV he can sometimes seem dour and uncommunicative - as in a recent Katie Couric interview - I found him bubbly and friendly. He was pleased that in recent days he had just seen an old buddy, George Harrison, who was apparently in L.A. (though NOT at the EMI party he'd helped finance!). Simon was also tickled by the news that the cult 1978 Pythonesque film spoofing the Beatles, "The Rutles," in which Simon had a memorable cameo, was coming out on DVD with some outtakes of his memorable mock interview. It was interesting that he was more animated...
Maybe it's the slush and slate-gray skies, or the unscrubbed, dour faces of my overworked classmates, or the prospect of that final exam coming up tomorrow morning--but lately, I've started feeling a tad pessimistic about the state of the world...
...What the fellow was about was a dour, insufferable, high-principled and wholly admirable political puritanism that makes a mockery of today's craven politics-by-focus-group-and-poll. John Quincy Adams could not be accused of doing merely the popular thing; he made a fetish of doing the unpopular thing. I don't say that George W. Bush bears any discernible resemblance to John Quincy Adams, beyond being a WASP son deeply proud and warmly devoted to his father...