Word: modestly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Even people who know and like Leon Panetta aren't sure he can bring order to the devolutionary Clinton White House. Like Mack McLarty, Panetta appears unfailingly polite. Like Clinton, he comes from modest roots, and straddles his party's left and moderate flanks. His self-deprecating humor is disarming: top aides say he cannot go more than a few minutes in meetings without making some self-critical wisecrack. Reporters lost track of the number of times Panetta, who turned 56 last Tuesday, observed -- with a roll of his eyes -- how his new job was "one hell of a birthday...
...chairman's swearing-in as leader of his ancestral Palestinian homeland. In Jericho, Arafat led12 members of the Palestine National Authority in the oath of office for the self-rule government, despite complaints that Israeli officials had allowed Jewish militants to block thousands of Palestinians from the modest ceremony. Next stop for Arafat: Paris, where he'll receive a U.N. Peace Prize with Israeli leaders Wednesday. He's likely to use the platform to wangle slow-coming international financial aid for the new state.parpar
...death in front of his house. That same day two people were shot to death by gangsters during a car chase on the Rublev Highway. What surprised onlookers was not the sight of a high-speed gun battle along the heavily guarded road. It was the fact that a modest, Russian-made Zhiguli was able to overtake a more powerful Jeep Grand Cherokee...
Sultan Ganji, sitting in the umpire's chair at Court 8 last week, had a small problem. Olivier Delaitre, a French tennis player of modest repute, was hammering his countryman Rodolphe Gilbert mercilessly in a first-round match. As another Gilbert forehand went beyond the chalk in the opinion of the judge on that line, Gilbert turned to Gangji and pouted, "How could that ball possibly be out?!" Gangji paused, looked beneficently down at Gilbert and said, "I don't know. It was too close for me to call...
...with the skill and grace of Gangji, an employee of the International Tennis Federation, who makes a modest salary of $45,000 for the 35 weeks a year that he officiates at tournaments in New York, Lagos, London and various other way stations on the endless tennis circuit. He is one of the handful of salaried professionals in a field traditionally peopled with volunteers calling lines for a cold beer and a pat on the back. At Wimbledon the umpires receive about $200 a day plus meals for squinting into the near distance and making a call that could well...