Word: downplaying
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...only one officer in a patrol car instead of two. Letteri would like the department to reduce each officer's shift from eight hours to six and to increase shift overlaps--a move he says would allow the police to offer a more adequate level of protection. The officers downplay their own interests in asking for the change; as one said, "We don't give a shit about this increased workload on us--we're not cry-babies. But how the hell are we going to be able to do a decent job with so few guys...
During the fracas, CB Fan Johnny Bench used radio jargon to downplay the importance of short wave in baseball. Said Bench: "It still comes down to the fact that someone has to throw the ball, someone has to hit it, and someone has to catch it. Do you copy, good buddy?" In the 1976 World Series, the Cincinnati Reds proved that they throw and hit and catch well enough to be copied into baseball lore...
...tragedies like Bill's are old hat. Everyone knows all about the so-called new mood on campus--grade consciousness, the pre-professional crunch and ruthless competition--and what it drives some students to do. College administrators seek more than ever to downplay the morbid and to be more tolerant of the ethical transgressions (Harvard, for instance, readmitted this year a student who last year forged a series of medical school and scholarship recommendations). The media, on the other hand, has feasted on this emerging spectacle; few major publications have failed to make a big splash out of some variation...
...Fred Buzhardt, an insider's insider, hears that W&B are on the case. He remembers the job they did in All the President's Men and so figures they are bound to ferret out most of the facts. Then, remembering one or two incidents he would like to downplay and remembering what a shoddy performance St. Clair turned in, Buzhardt decides to talk and, shall we say, "shape" W&B's understanding of the final days. Because W&B have made all the judgments, we have to take all of The Final Days on faith, never quite sure that...
Publicly, President Ford tried to downplay Nixon's odyssey, saying that it had "no political ramifications at all." Privately, Ford and his aides were furious that his disgraced predecessor would accept the longstanding invitation just as Ford was fighting to fend off the challenge of Ronald Reagan in the New Hampshire primary. Because Nixon seemed to be emerging from his San Clemente exile, Ford was being peppered with questions in New Hampshire about why he had pardoned the ex-President. Said one senior White House staffer: "It's goddam humiliating. Nixon can be forgiven for trying to make...