Word: hindsight
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...April 2, the day after the National Security Council approved the package sale to the Saudis, Reagan confirmed the decision from his hospital bed. The President is inexperienced in the nuances of Middle East politics; in hindsight, it is easy to argue that he should have waited longer to make his decision. The problem is that a bruising battle in Congress, which could have been avoided, has now been joined. It will take all of Reagan's political skills to avoid either a political defeat, or an outcome in Congress that will alienate one or the other...
There are moments in the affairs of nations that historians, with the snug granny glasses of hindsight, adjudge climactic: the end of one era, the beginning of another, a true shift of the tectonic plates of society. Often such events largely escape the notice of those living at the time; significance dawns slowly, meaning comes piecemeal. Whether or not what Ronald Reagan asked of the U.S. last week in his televised address to the assembled houses of Congress will some day be considered such a moment remains to be seen. But no one who heard him will be able...
...outgoing Carter Administration looked back over more than a year of frustrated efforts to free the Americans, some of its members privately voiced hindsight regrets. One high-level insider now thinks that an early show of military force, along the lines of the belated airborne assault that ended in tragic failure, might have been a smart tactic. But Carter still argues that a hasty plan, which could have ended in the death of some or all of the hostages, would have been far worse than the prolonged imprisonment. Nor does Carter subscribe to the argument of some that in effect...
...those few weeks before the Inaugural, the town and its people seemed -from present hindsight, at least-to be the kind of America promised by Ronald Reagan now. Its virtues and vices were personal. Contact was face to face, and the limits on life were human limits: How much do you need? How much can you get? Where do you come from? What color are you? How much will you bear? Can I help any way? Do I want...
...translation and make it sound trendy. The 1930 recommendation of "respect for the physical earth" glosses into ecology and environmentalism. "The South can well afford to be backward" may be twisted into relevance as a plea for the "zero-sum society." Agrarianism, in fact, can be defined with glib hindsight as a Southern branch of "neo-conservatism...