Word: oversold
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...computers was generated by buffs and hobbyists who by now have already bought their machines. "Early market forecasting was extrapolated from that lunatic fringe," says Bill Coggshall, president of Software Access International, a market-research firm. In addition, some industry observers contend that the personal-computer revolution has been oversold and that potential customers are resisting purchases because the machines are hard...
Santmyer has not played much of a tune on that instrument, but her honest attempt is remarkable for its attention to detail-and, of course, its longevity. One suspects, considering the circus surrounding the book, that it is the publisher who has oversold the song and dance...
Verba is philosophical about the legacy he leaves to undergraduate education. As a social scientist, he says he understands that the solutions are not going to be immediate or perfect. "Any reform decays and is oversold at the beginning," he says. "You need, as Mao said, constant vigilance to maintain the revolution. Like any institutions there are flurries of interest. This [interest in reforming undergraduate education] is one that's institutionalized in [this] office and will continue to be something that my successor will have to deal with...
Muted versions of this idea were born before the Reagan Administration. Kissinger feared that détente, if oversold, might undercut support for defense. He oversold it nonetheless, but the result was more the undercutting of detente itself. Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, noted in his journal in 1978 that he and Secretary of Defense Harold Brown "both worried that SALT will be used to generate such euphoria about American-Soviet relations that it will be difficult to face realistically either the Soviet military or the Soviet regional challenge...
While détente may have been oversold in its heyday, in hindsight it looks undervalued, especially when compared with the naiveté and vacillations of Jimmy Carter or with the worldwide anti-Soviet "crusade" proclaimed by Ronald Reagan last summer. In an interview with TIME in New York City last week, Nixon made clear that he thinks it is time for the Reagan Administration to change both the tone and substance of its dealings with Moscow...