Word: inept
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Even in the absence of official dishonesty, law enforcement has often proved inept. Most city and state police agencies are still not equipped to deal effectively with clever, well-financed conspiracies that extend across city and state lines. The FBI is better trained, of course, but its special agents hardly constitute a national police force, and were never intended to do so. Until...
...police, secret or otherwise, were keeping a wary eye on him. They were sure he was up to no good, but their problem was to catch him at it. For his part, the prince treated the police alternately with indifference and insouciance. Fortunately for the prince, they were mostly inept, often irritating, but sometimes diverting. There was one glorious day when he conned one of the Czar's gumshoes into carrying his luggage. The rules of the game were more urbane in those days...
...shape to undergo breath or other tests for alcohol. Thus, they might have chosen to risk the lesser charge of leaving the scene of an accident over the graver charges that might have arisen from drunken driving. It is, of course, possible that the two men were simply being inept. Whatever the explanation, that point remains one of the weakest in Kennedy's story...
...divided into three camps: the "normals," who fumbled their way through adulthood, clawing at flannel nightgowns in the dark; the "abnormals," who found some release from their secret agonies by paying incredibly high prices for incredibly inept pornographic trash sold under the counter by amoral "businessmen"; and the pathetically small group of well-adjusted human beings who answered their children's early, innocent questions honestly and didn't paddle their behinds every time they fondled themselves...
Inheriting a dangerously overheated economy, Nixon has moved forcefully to curb inflation. His economists have tightened the fiscal and monetary screws and, unlike Johnson, Nixon appears ready to maintain that firm grip even at the cost of greater unemployment. But some of his subordinates have been painfully inept, notably Treasury Secretary David Kennedy, who last week suggested for the second time since taking office that it might be necessary to impose wage and price controls if the surtax were not extended (see BUSINESS). He did this even though the President is firmly and publicly opposed to such a step. Nixon...