Word: fiascos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Harry Hapless, it was a rough day in the service economy. His car, a Fiasco 400, started sputtering on the highway, so Harry pulled into a gas station for help. "Sorry, no mechanics, only gas!" shouted the attendant. "How can you call this a service station?" yelled Harry. He went to the bank to get some emergency cash for a tow truck, only to find the automatic teller machine out of order, again. "Real nice service!" he muttered. Then Harry decided to use a credit card to buy a tool kit at the Cheapo discount store, but he couldn...
...tried before. To escape the shadows of Contrameinia, he has to accept responsibility for the scandal, admit to a fundamental policy error and take steps to prevent such a situation from recurring. The president must admit as JFK did after the Bay of Pigs fiasco of April, 1961, "I am the responsible officer of this government." At the date of this writing, the Administration has only admitted that "mistakes were made." Reagan has detached himself from responsibility for the deal in the same way that he detached himself from the formulation of the deal...
...unfortunate effect of the current fiasco is that Casey's widely recognized revitalization of the CIA is suffering a severe jolt. Casey has hiked the agency's budget by 50% (to an estimated $1 billion) during his six- year tenure. He has markedly improved the quality of the agency's intelligence analyses, partly by creating a better balance between the Company's capabilities in ELINT (electronic intelligence gathering) and HUMINT (human intelligence gathering, meaning spies and informers), which had been given short shrift. Having been a World War II operative for the old Office of Strategic Services...
...because of educational reforms instituted by the newly installed conservative government. This proves a well-known rule. No, not that two Frenchmen will have three opinions, but rather that Europeans take their politics much more seriously than Americans do. Nothing bears this rule out more than the Iran-Contra fiasco that is washing up on our shores...
Pages, many too many pages, have been spent analyzing and debating the similarities and differences between this latest fiasco and Watergate. Some argue breaking the law in the already dirty world of partisan politics pales in comparison with an attempt to conduct foreign policy illegally. Others argue that the more directly the President is involved, the more serious the scandal, and in that way Watergate is by far worse...