Word: geniality
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...defense, but for the most part, the queries sounded more like valedictories. "Without question, General Powell's experience at the highest levels of government... makes him well qualified to be secretary of state," enthused Senator Joe Biden. No one doubts Powell will win confirmation, especially after a hearing so genial it moved CNN's national correspondent to remark, "I imagine there's someone standing at the door saying, 'Welcome to the Love Boat...
...later life, Schulz joked that he looked like a druggist. Genial, smiling, with straight white teeth and a head of silver hair, he dressed modestly in muted slacks and pastel golf sweaters. He stood a trim five feet eleven and a half inches ("I never quite got to six feet") and liked to sprawl after work in a big blue leather easy chair, his long legs pointing straight at the TV set. "People say 'Where do you get your ideas?'" he once recalled, "because they look at me and they think, Surely this man could never think of anything funny...
...course, most of all this debate was about preparation. After a debate in which he repeatedly got downright testy with the aggressive Gore - who returned to his pushy, interjecting Round 1 roots - Bush closed with genial closing remarks he was determined, come hell or high dudgeon, to give. (And who doesn't think his closing "good luck" to Gore wasn't planned?) Like his opponent, he trawled to his questioners for eye contact, hoping for that decisive, Clintonian, feel-your-pain moment...
...Exposure ripoff? Try "improvement." Instead of precious magic realism and urban condescension, it radiates a loving optimism and goodwill toward its Midwestern goofs. Surprisingly, this sweet comedy comes from the crusty David Letterman (through his company Worldwide Pants). Dave's involvement is limited, but Ed deftly captures the genial, absurd side--the sunny underbelly--of his humor, as when a friend bets Ed, apropos of nothing, that he can't meow loud enough to make an old man turn around...
...Such a genial host has the quiet effect of curbing pointed questions. Who wants to bring up politics, religion or money at a family dinner or when there are Dove Bars on demand? One day in Pittsburgh, after Bush and his press pack filled the plane with talk of jogging routes, pickup trucks and heifers, it was the reporters on the ground who pressed Bush to clarify his mushy position on abortion and whether he could prove, given the absence of official documents, that he had actually put in all his time in the National Guard. The charm vanished...