Word: fig
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...Fig Leaf...
...effort to patch together a political future for the Moscow-backed regime of Afghan President Najibullah, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze made a quick trip to Islamabad, where he conferred with Pakistan's leaders. But this attempt to cloak the embarrassed retreat with some diplomatic fig leaves failed, surprising few Soviet citizens, who have long since made up their minds about the misdirected war effort. "It was a noble cause," said a returning soldier last week, "and a mistake." Moscow's task will be to resurrect dignity from the rubble of a bitter defeat that cost 15,000 Soviet lives...
...shocking protest over his company's involvement in tobacco, the Big Fig Newton hangs up his green booties for good. RJR-Nabisco's new owners, the takeover giant Kohlberg, Kravitz and Roberts (a.k.a. Harvard's slush fund), fill his pointy shoes with another prominent ambassador of good will. "Indeed, it is a profound honor to assume such a prestigious post. It is a veritable step up the ladder, one might say," former Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III tells Gourmet magazine...
...safer alternative for Shamir might be to lure Labor into a broad coalition. But the party would be a junior partner, and the opening round of talks proved humiliating for its leader, Shimon Peres. "It's a joke," said Labor Party member Yossi Beilin. "They need us as a fig leaf, and their demands are impossible...
...Reagan's famous "there you go again" quip. But here the blame rests equally with both candidates, who consciously refrained from raising new issues and arguments before the more than 62 million TV viewers. Despite a barrage of questions on the deficit, Bush and Dukakis clung to the fig leaf provided by their dubious budget nostrums. The Vice President escaped serious challenge on his implausible insistence that his so-called flexible freeze of 4% budget growth can accommodate new domestic proposals like $1,000 child-care grants, special-interest tax cuts and muscular military spending. Dukakis, however, was hammered...