Word: mannerisms
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...Kicking the Can When Obama drafted Rattner and another financier, Ron Bloom, to lead his auto task force, he instructed them to "treat these transactions in a commercial manner." That is to say, restructure the companies in a way that makes good business sense. The "commercial" mantra proved fleeting. The first imperative of commerce - to add value and thus earn profits - is too narrow to host all the civic expectations attached to the auto industry. If GM's only task were to make money, the company would shutter its car factories (or move them to low-cost countries) and churn...
...pedal. "She was something of a grind," says Stephen Carter, a classmate and friend who now teaches at Yale. "She was always in the library, always had a casebook under her arm." But unlike some of the hardest-charging young law students, says Carter, "she always had a manner that was open. She didn't put down other people." Even then, her approach to the law was meticulous and small bore, as in a piece she published in the law journal on a technical issue affecting potential Puerto Rican statehood. "She wasn't advocating for or against a particular position...
...plot: "Fiscal restraint for defense and fiscal largesse for everything else." Congressman Trent Franks of Arizona was very concerned about anti-missile defense - a gold-plated pipe dream, if there ever was one - and especially a product dramatically called the Kinetic Energy Interceptor. To which Gates replied, in a manner so casually dismissive that Franks seemed to shrivel in his seat, "I would just say that the security of the American people and the efficacy of missile defense are not enhanced by continuing to put money into programs ... that are essentially sinkholes for taxpayer dollars." (See pictures...
...quietly impressive career in government that has spanned more than 30 mostly Republican years, Robert Gates is suddenly seeming almost, well, charismatic. He reeks authority. He is, according to several sources, the most respected voice in National Security Council debates. The President is said to love his unadorned manner. Much of which is attributable to the fact that, in the self-proclaimed twilight of his public career, Gates has emerged as that most exotic of Washington species - the bureaucrat unbound, candid and fearless. He tells members of Congress what he really thinks about their pet programs. He upends Pentagon priorities...
...runner-up Grand Jury Prize went to Un prophéte (A Prophet), a complex, absorbing, fairly conventional prison drama directed by Jacques Audiard. In the manner of last year's Palme d'Or winner The Class, set in a Paris junior high school, this is a documentary-style study of French minorities in an enclosed environment that sets its own rules. The main tension - and there's plenty in the schemings of rival ethnic gangs - comes from the relationship of a young Arab (Tahar Rahim) and his aged Corsican mentor (Niels Arestrup). When asked at the post-show press...