Word: explainer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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That is not what voters would ordinarily hear from the White House during an election campaign. Presidential aides, however, stuck doggedly to just that line in trying to explain the concededly inexcusable White House request for secret FBI files on some 700 people, mostly low-level workers in the Reagan and Bush administrations but also including prominent Republicans...
Puzzled? Confused? Outraged? Maybe I can explain this by taking you back to the streets of New York City in the 1950s, where games of stickball were played on city streets with a lamppost for a foul line and the bumper of a '52 Ford for second base. When disputes broke out, as they did every three or four minutes, there was never an umpire to settle things. Instead we relied on an unwritten rule known as "Your own man says so!" If a player admitted that, yeah, his teammate was out, that...
...first elected Democrat since F.D.R. not to face a serious primary challenge. Nor have Democrats taken up the charge that Clinton is ethically challenged. In sharp contrast to the bipartisan outrage over Watergate and Iran-contra, the Whitewater hearings broke down completely along partisan lines. This may help explain why most voters seem to be treating the affair as too embroiled in political wrangling to affect their votes in November. But that is also why the FBI files story has at least the potential to cause real political damage. If Democrats with a passion for civil liberties come to believe...
That's a great pile of narrative nuts and bolts and, dutifully sorting through it, Bergman forgets to explain persuasively what a nice girl like Erin--smart, spunky and a former FBI employee--is doing in a dump called the Eager Beaver, taking off her clothes for a living. Worse, he misses Hiaasen's strength: setting mean-funny characters spinning through lowlife milieus. Yes, Burt Reynolds has some dirty, lively moments as a crooked, sex-starved Congressman. But the crazy, nothing-to-lose anarchy of people living below the margin and beyond the fringe is not within Bergman's fastidious...
Health experts suspect that Cyclospora may have piggybacked a ride into North America in the intestines of world travelers. But that doesn't explain how it managed to spread beyond those initial contacts. Doctors have traced 26 of 61 confirmed cases in Houston to two gatherings at which strawberries were served. "Those who got ill ate strawberries, and those who didn't get sick didn't recall eating any strawberries," says Dr. Kate Hendricks of the Texas department of health. Investigators traced that fruit back to a handful of California farms but so far haven't turned up any tainted...