Word: epithets
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Nicolai Lenin, his good friend, described Molotov as "Russia's best filing clerk." The epithet was unfair. True, Molotov is colorless, pedantic, phenomenally hardworking. His mind likes order, method, efficiency, and all that passes through it is filed neatly in mental pigeonholes. But he is no dullard. A clear thinker, he keeps his feet on a solid foundation of history, philosophy and economics. Like most Soviet leaders, he quotes from Hegel, Marx, Lenin, Plekhanov-and Stalin-at the drop of a gavel...
Leon Trotsky, his bitter enemy, called him "a social climber." The epithet was untrue. Molotov is unassuming. He has had power for a quarter of a century. For half of this time, he has been Stalin's Man Friday, which is as high as a man can climb in Russia. Molotov has not let the power go to his head...
...Roosevelt is that he is a politician-a politician not in the sense of invidious epithet, but in the sense of the name of the profession skilled in gaming, keeping and wielding political power, often for praiseworthy ends...
...kindest epithet for the average documentary film is the word dull. The kindest thing to say about people who inflict such documentaries on cinemaudiences is that they confuse reality with fact. They think that photofact is intrinsically superior to photofiction, and indulge an even more mistaken idea that there is something undignified in entertaining the customers. But several recent British documentaries (some already released, others soon to be) prove that all it takes to make screen fact as good as the best screen fiction is the know...
Looking around for U.S. reaction, OWI grabbed a column by the New York Post's Samuel Grafton, who wrote: "The moronic Fttle king who has stood behind Mussolini's shoulder for 21 years has moved forward one pace." OWI added an epithet of its own: "Marshal Badoglio, a high-ranking Fascist, has been named successor." It also quoted one John Durfee, described as "the American political commentator," as saying that Mussolini's fall was not regarded in the U.S. as an event of much importance...