Word: dourness
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...into the recent emergence of other Soviet officials into the limelight. Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov has assumed an increasingly high profile, particularly in dealing with the post-earthquake cleanup operation in Armenia. Shevardnadze is also a familiar face on the evening news these days, as is Yegor Ligachev, the dour conservative who has worked at softening his brusque image since being bumped from the de facto No. 2 party slot by Gorbachev last September. Some tea-leaf readers see the increasing visibility of such officials as evidence of Gorbachev's waning clout; others see it as evidence of his strength...
After the dour, crabbed atmosphere of the Carter years, the country needed a mood change. The great failure, and great paradox, of the Reagan era is that its protagonist succeeded too well on that score. His rhetoric on domestic matters encouraged Americans to celebrate instant gratification at the expense of the future, while his policies channeled national energies away from enterprises of common purpose. Reaganomics increased the national debt by 170% and converted the U.S. from a major creditor to a vulnerable debtor in the global financial market...
...point they are already united: Israel will not alter its refusal to talk with the P.L.O. Both parties are bracing for a bumpy time with Washington. Ever the optimist, Peres suggested that the U.S. will soon wise up to its mistake and back out of a bad judgment. The dour Shamir offered little but bitterness last week...
...discipline of creating a national campaign; he insisted on micromanaging nearly everything from interviewing political aides to approving scripts of TV spots. The result: insularity and indecision. In addition, Dukakis has failed to inspire loyalty, a quality that Bush prizes, perhaps in the extreme. But at this dour moment in the campaign when true leadership demands discipline, the Dukakis camp has become riven with faction and plagued with press leaks from advisers seeking to salvage their own reputations from the debris of seeming defeat...
...meeting, Gorbachev lauded "the merits and achievements" of the dour-faced Gromyko, indicating he was leaving in good standing...