Word: powerfulness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...time he came out of his Hanoi prison, John McCain had learned the power of stories. He had been raised on them. The son and grandson of admirals forever at sea, he had spent more time with their legends than with the men themselves. Among the POWs, he was the prison storyteller, the one who helped pass the days by retelling, scene by scene, his favorite Marlon Brando movies, who offered a course he called A History of the World from the Beginning, the one who was allowed 10 minutes with a Bible one Christmas so he could refresh...
...running mate, and has been from the day he decided to leave the Navy for politics. It has served as both weapon and shield, a kind of deterrent that makes him easy to fear, hard to attack, hard sometimes even to live with. Throughout his rise to power, it was the story that could both win people over and shut people down. Who among his adversaries wanted to answer the question, "So just what were you doing from 1967 till 1973, while he was being maimed and tortured in service to his country...
...hell, and politics can be too when you treat it like one. Home-state politicians complain that as he rose to power, McCain worked to turn the Arizona Republican Party into his personal fleet, tacking to his orders and subject to his discipline. Anyone who stepped out of line would find McCain out recruiting primary challengers, even down to the city-council races. "You are either with him," says a local politician who supports McCain, "or you're wearing the black hat." Says his former administrative assistant Grant Woods, with whom relations have gone sour: "As a maverick McCain doesn...
Given the prevailing mood in Congress--which seems to be allergic to anything that expands the size and power of government--creating a new agency might be tough. But the Institute of Medicine has powerful logic on its side. Air travel in the U.S. is extraordinarily safe, thanks largely to the National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA. They try to pinpoint the cause of every crash and, when a problem is identified, they may order the airlines to redesign equipment or improve training or adjust pilot schedules to reduce the chance of more accidents. The Occupational Safety and Health...
...forward-looking plan that Zacarias, 70, didn't have the clout to enact. He wasn't popular enough--the school board recently bought out his contract after a bitter power struggle--but even fellow reformers think his plan was too much, too soon. Says board member David Tokofsky: "You've got the unions who want their say. And, of course, there's the facilities issue: Where do you send all these eighth-graders if you can't send them to high school?" The district now says it will stop advancing low-achieving students only in two grades (second and eighth...