Word: flips
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Dole can say Clinton has no core beliefs, but that's not quite how voters see it. The flip side of someone's being indecisive is that he is still searching for the answer. Voters see Clinton not as having waffled but as having heard their message. Clinton got his comeuppance in 1994. Then, just as he did in Arkansas after voters threw him out of office in 1980, he set out to prove, "I get it, I really get it now." Whether or not that is high or good character is hard to say, but it is penitence, shrewdness...
...thought we were studs. It truly was immense to the eye. I've seen some lists that have the obvious needs: sheets, computer, alarm clock, towels. I've even seen some flashes of creativity in lists that extolled the virtues of packing and shipping such things as flip-flops and Imodium A-D caplets...
Most journalists do not understand how clever these operatives are. For instance, reporters think it fiendishly clever to ask the flip-flop question. ("Sir, in 1986 you voted to permit the building of falafel stands in the Grand Canyon. Last year you opposed the bill. Isn't there a contradiction here?" Correct response: "Not at all, Ted. You're overlooking a key distinction...
...photo-op. Culturally clueless--his favorite entertainers, Glenn Miller and John Wayne, are dead--Dole was taken to task after his first Hollywood "nightmares-of-depravity" speech for criticizing movies he hadn't seen and music he hadn't heard. Now that he was planning to do a back flip with a one-and-a-half twist from his earlier position--Hollywood isn't so depraved after all--he needed to do his homework...
While my students are enjoying free time, a parent calls me over. But instead of asking about his kid's flip turn, he makes a comment about Hahvahd. I am taken aback: the owner must have been bragging. The murmur of conversation in our area has died: all ears are on me. I smile and respond, then try to get my concentration back to where it should be: my swim class. On the way home, I see college decals in the back windows of other cars: University of Idaho, Pullman University, BYU. I promise myself never to buy a Harvard...