Word: instinctive
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Bush will put a few weeks between the big Baker-Hamilton rollout and his own restart. White House officials worry that anything faster would look too reactive--a curious instinct, given the public's overwhelming desire for change and the positive response Bush received when he tossed Rumsfeld over the side after the elections. Says a former government official who has known Bush for 20 years: "If he is going to take political advantage of things he might have done anyhow, why not do them fast instead of slow?" It may be that the President is not yet ready...
...That instinct helps explain why Gates thinks of himself as a transformational leader. After the CIA missed the fall of the Soviet Union, Gates launched reforms of 14 parts of the agency's operations, from analysis to satellite imagery to language study. Although not all these reforms bore fruit, CIA spending on Soviet collection and analysis shrank from 60% of its budget to less than 15%. Gates tried the same thing at Texas A&M, a school with an almost stubborn resistance to change--ending admissions preference for children of alumni, hiring hundreds of new faculty members and firing veteran...
...about instinct and impulse and a decision at the last minute," she admits. But it was also a savvy move that built on her two biggest assets: fame and a familiarity with the city. Her platform was simple to the point of seeming simplistic: cut crime and promote Detroit as a tourist attraction for music. But after four decades as lead singer of Martha and the Vandellas, Reeves knew how to move a crowd. She campaigned almost as easily as she had once made hits like Heat Wave and Dancing in the Streets. And she won her seat...
...that confidence that enables her to be both the thoroughbred who works like a dray and the Oscar perennial who shows off her breasts. It's the same instinct that told her what to do when Titanic became a global cultural obsession, transforming her from the daughter of actors making her way up the film food chain to an international symbol of young, reckless, undying love. She fled. She made a string of the least commercially appealing films imaginable, featuring wayward mothers, weird cults, memory loss and the Marquis de Sade. In fact, the 13 films she has appeared...
...willing we are to put ourselves and others into constricting boxes of political identity. After all, when someone strays from any of the aforementioned norms, she is frequently met not only with surprise, but with contempt. When we hear about a gay Republican, it seems that our first instinct is to either call that person a hypocrite, or to pity the poor soul for her apparent “self-hatred.” Similarly, if you’re a black Republican, good luck convincing anyone that you’re not a traitor to your race. Lastly...