Word: feign
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...lifelong Catholic, Pelosi could not feign surprise at being called upon by the Church to use her gift for persuasion to restrict abortion legislatively, or at least not to be its advocate. But until now, the Church had not formally instructed judges in a similar fashion. As written, the Pope's statement has the potential, at least theoretically, to empty the U.S. Supreme Court of all five of its Catholic jurists and perhaps all other Catholics who sit on the bench in the lower federal and state courts...
...President-elect needs to feign a willingness to listen to the right. He has already established his bipartisan bona fides on domestic and foreign policy by picking a Republican Defense Secretary, an undeclared but right-leaning National Security Adviser, an independent Treasury Secretary and now, reportedly, a Republican Transportation Secretary. In those positions centrists and Republicans won't be merely symbols of Obama's open-mindedness; they will be among his closest advisers...
...Conspicuous Consumption Is Safe. It used to be hard to tell rich from poor in Baghdad, especially outside the Green Zone. Fear of being kidnapped for ransom prompted many wealthy Iraqis to feign poverty. Living below one's means became an art form: decrepit cars, cheap cell phones, minimalist jewelry...
...Given that the very purpose of the boo-boys is to get under the skin of French officialdom, a more effective response may be to feign indifference in order to rob the slight of its intended impact. In fact, a significant portion of the booing has little to do with politics at all - it's the reaction of white French soccer fans to the parlous state of the national team, and failure of an unresponsive establishment to rectify it by firing the widely loathed national coach, Raymond Domenech...
...Span viewers this summer also have been treated to testimony by former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, and current Attorney General Michael Mukasey. They all appear to be cut from the same cloth. They may seem evasive. They may feign poor memories, inspired by the tactic’s success in the case of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. They may even invoke executive privilege. Yet beneath the veneer of forgetfulness and caution, they seek to entrench the same fundamental belief in the American psyche...