Word: orly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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No scoops are to be found here; no lids get ripped off anything. Strout watches the men--scarcely a woman makes it into the text--who are running things and wonders about them and about what they will do next. The columns are breezy and interesting, 800 weekly words offering...
But in the brevity of his thoughts lies the collection's most serious problem. Sometimes attacking two or more subjects in one piece, Strout has little chance to develop his thoughts from week to week. He states a set of principles, then ignores them time and again. In Carroll Kilpatrick...
The columns themselves present a different message. His laments begin under Roosevelt, the first of the eight presidents he observes: Why won't Congress let anything happen? Why is it so stodgy? The necessity for two-thirds of the senators to approve any treaty bothers him when he worries about...
AT MORE THAN 500 pages, the collection could stand some selective paring. First on the list to go would be several columns where Strout simply tries to do too much. An emotional protest against the use of the atom bomb somehow winds up as a plea to pay American diplomats...
The insensitive analysis of the Rosenberg case is atypical. Strout believes in the promise of America and seems personally offended when it goes unfulfilled. Never maudlin or saccharine, he grafts the mentality of the Rugged Individualist onto a compassionate New Deal liberal. After Robert Kennedy's assassination, he says, "Think...