Word: down-playing
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...White House, led by Chief of Staff James Baker, feared that the President's tough talk about missiles and military threats could resurrect the image lingering in the minds of some voters that Reagan talks too often like a "warmonger." Although they had persuaded Reagan to down-play the defense issue before the 1980 elections, this time these advisers deferred to Clark and Weinberger. Some even saw it as a test between two competing strategies on the best way to implement the Reagan agenda: the "let Reagan be Reagan" hard-liners vs. those who prefer to win legislative victories...
...management changing of the guard came after several days of intense debate among senior presidential aides on the best strategy for regaining control of the politically damaging situation. Twice last week the President tried to down-play the problems, blaming the press for exaggerating the story. Said Reagan: "We're falling into that trap of running as if the sky is falling, just on the basis of accusations, without... any substance back of it. The EPA has, in truth, done a fine job." But White House insiders conceded that the Administration was hurting. Said one: "We may have handed...
Joining the effort to down-play the assault on West Beirut, Defense Minisrter Ariel Sharon, architect of the Lebanese invasion, complained to the U.S. Government about Habib's reports to Washington that Israel was firing 1,000 shells into West Beirut for every shell fired by the Palestinians. Sharon denounced such accounts as "mendacious" and said that they were based on observations from afar...
...u.C.L.A. researchers have reported that herpes viruses can live on towels for up to 72 hr. and on toilet seats for at least four. In one test, a seat used by a woman with thigh lesions showed live herpes viruses 90 min. later. But most doctors down-play the U.C.L.A. study. Dr. Harold Kessler of Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke's, in Chicago, says herpetics should use their own towels, though the chances of passing on the infection via a towel are only about 1%. The virus dies so fast on a toilet seat, he says, that the risk of infection...
...long delay in appointing a chairman for the CEA fostered some speculation that the Reagan Administration had decided to down-play the role of economists in the Government. Their strength under Reagan is certainly less than under Carter. In addition to the chairman of the CEA, there were four Ph.D. economists in the first Carter Cabinet...