Word: downright
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...uncomfortable many white Americans (in as much as they are implicated as the guilty party). Confuse because there seems to be such a vast disparity between where blacks are today and where they once were that complaints about the racial oppression of blacks come off sounding exaggerated, if not downright whiny...
...best witness, as his joint press conference with Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair made clear. Press conferences with foreign leaders are normally awkward affairs in which the questions and the answers arrive in separate languages, on separate topics, with separate translators. So Friday's performance was downright surreal: the two golden boys of the Third way, Bill and Tony, speaking the same language, practicing a style of politics one had virtually copied from the other, both touting the virtues of a middle class that works hard and plays by the rules. Except that Clinton had somehow got very...
...cover of one of her songs, 32 Flavors, by newcomer Alana Davis added a few lyrics (Davis' rendition, by the way, is terrific). But what's truly surprising about the first track on DiFranco's new album, which is also the title song, is just how good-natured and downright jaunty it is. After the first verse, DiFranco lets loose a country-and-western "yee-haw" and a wave of gentle ska-infused horns kicks in. It's an early signal: this is an album that refuses to be boxed...
...movie's stultifyingly paced plot and Grier's well-intentioned yet boring performance seem instantly tired. At one point, the "sudden shoot" gimmick--witness Tim Roth's character in Reservoir Dogs, or Pulp Fiction's poor victim of Vincent Vega's gun and a bump in the road--seems downright offensive, suggesting a world where such cavalier violence on a woman is far more disturbing and sinister than Tarantino blindly intended...
Roger Rosenblatt, in writing about the newly revealed tape recordings made by Richard Nixon, recalled with fondness the laughs evoked by some of the remarks of past American Chief Executives [ESSAY, Nov. 24]. As a U.S. historian who focuses on the presidency, I found Rosenblatt's commentary downright hysterical until I got to the quote he attributed to Woodrow Wilson. In fact, it was Calvin Coolidge who said when a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment results. It's worth noting that Silent Cal had a sense of humor so dry that Alice Roosevelt Longworth said...