Word: letting
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...paragon of this new phase in political non-discourse is Hillary Clinton, the nation's most prominent office seeker. But let's be fair. After all, she is only one of many politicians who have recently--no, wait. Let's not be fair. Like her husband, Mrs. Clinton senses unerringly the trajectories of American politics and manages with supernatural ease to embody them. Thus as she begins her pursuit of office she declines to become a campaigner. She has become a listener...
...supposed to work the other way around? Give the earlier gasbags their due: annoying as they were, the pontificating pols at least stuck to the traditional democratic format. They talked; we listened. They presented themselves and their ideas, such as they were, and then let the voters choose--in the blessed silence of the voting booth. The arrangement seemed to work rather well, and allowed for such democratic necessities as leadership, principle and the disinterested formulation of ideas...
There may be only two practical ways to deal with the question of privacy for candidates, and neither relies on the self-restraint of the press, since that is a forlorn hope. The first is the "let it all hang out" approach, in which the candidate answers every question, truthfully, and relies on the good sense of the people to weigh the importance of what is disclosed. There is good reason to believe, post-Clinton, that we have arrived at a time in which the public can sort out what's important and what is merely embarrassing. Do most candidates...
...second approach is to say nothing about the sins of the past, and to let the public decide whether the stonewall is covering up some egregious mistake or is rather a healthy assertion of political privacy. This seems to be George W. Bush's current strategy, at least on this question. He has been quick to deny any marital infidelity and to admit earlier excessive drinking. It might be nice to think that a politician can decide where to draw the line on political privacy, but Bush is being naive if he thinks his silence will stop the questions...
...research and pick stocks themselves to castigate them as gamblers. These are precisely the people who have racked up the best returns in this bull market. And we lend too much of a veneer of professionalism to those who would gamble away life savings on random, short-term moves. Let's stop confusing these two contingents before we scare those who have the confidence and skills to be their own adviser and embolden those who should know better than to bet instead of invest...