Word: litmus
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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From Israel's perspective, all of this year's Democratic candidates are "right" on the current litmus test -- Jerusalem's request for $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to resettle Soviet Jews. Beyond that touchstone, the contenders' stances fragment. The candidate in the most potential trouble with American Jews is Bob Kerrey, who's "right" now, but who refused to co- sponsor the Senate bill that would have authorized granting the loan guarantees last fall. Kerrey's other problems include his calling Israel's West Bank settlements "provocative" and his insistence that the U.S. embassy remain in Tel Aviv...
Suddenly health care is becoming the litmus test of American politics. It was a central issue in this month's senatorial race in Pennsylvania. Little- known Democrat Harris Wofford, who called for a health-care plan that would cover all Americans, easily defeated former Governor Dick Thornburgh. As the 1992 presidential campaign gathers steam, every Democratic candidate is putting universal health care at the top of his agenda. While Nebraska's Bob Kerrey proposes a comprehensive plan that would require substantial new taxes, others, including Bill Clinton and Tom Harkin, are fashioning less costly approaches that emphasize preventive care. Says...
...Iraq, the U.S. must demonstrate that it will go just as far to win the peace. "A lot of people at the U.N., including our European allies as well as the Third World, look at the way we handle the Arab-Israeli conflict as a litmus test for our role in the post-cold war world," says Shibley Telhami, who was born a Palestinian Christian in Israel and served as an adviser to the U.S. delegation to the U.N. during the gulf war. The choice for Washington is not between sitting back cost free or taking a risk for peace...
...Kathy Chinoy is a lawyer whose specialty is sexual harassment. She finds that many of her colleagues in the statehouse are genuinely bewildered by the issue, though younger men, who grew up with a different code of conduct, seem to have a more acute understanding. She recommends a simple litmus test for men who are seeking guidance on what is appropriate and what is not: "Would you want your mother, sister or daughter exposed to that...
Nobody believes that Thomas, a federal judge, has never thought about Roe, and nobody believes that Gates, as deputy director of the CIA, didn't know what happened in his own organization in the early 1980s. Given the ignorance litmus test, both confirmations are in jeopardy...