Word: pragmatists
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Their antagonism is based less on personality than on principle. Despite his Sorbonne education, Banisadr is a devout Muslim layman who believes that the answers to all of Iran's problems can be found in Islam. Despite his clerical robes and title, Beheshti is a wily political pragmatist who uses ideology as a means to power. Twenty years ago, Beheshti was a writer of religious texts for public schools in Iran. A university professor who knew him then recalls that "he never argued with anyone. He seemed to believe that everyone is right. " Beheshti has apparently retained that ability...
Lately the word liberal has become something of a political epithet, meaning that the target is an impractical spendthrift. Kennedy's staff has taken to calling him a "pragmatist," which is supposed to convey the impression that he is a hard-headed problem solver not bound by any ideology. That definition, too, can be read in more than one way. Says an old Kennedy friend, conservative Republican Congressman Barber Conable of New York: "Ted is the son of Joe Kennedy and the brother of Jack and Bobby. Like them, he accommodates himself to the prevailing views...
...said that Americans "are not asking much from Government," and then went on to define "not much" as jobs, moderate supermarket prices, reasonable mortgage rates, good schools, a healthy environment and safe streets. Providing all that in today's world economy is quite an order, even for a pragmatist. On other occasions, Kennedy has seemed to be harking back to a 19th century form of liberalism. In his New York speech, he said: "We are making a clean break with the New Deal and even the 1960s. We reject the idea that Government knows best across the board, that public...
...right: "Ted has no experience or confidence in local government. He still thinks all the competency is in Washington." G.O.P. Congressman Barber Conable also casts Kennedy as a centrist, a Big Government man but one who has stayed well within the mainstream of his own party. "Kennedy is a pragmatist, not an ideologue," says Conable...
...Kennedy the pragmatist holds to his political course, always positioning himself to the left of Jimmy Carter, but closer to the party's emotional center of gravity. At the same time, with his immense personal popularity, he continues to challenge the President, keeping him off balance. Carter may find that he gets increasingly tired of Kennedy's sniping and that in spite of his instinct for restraint, a little dose of retaliation may jostle the Senator off his back...