Word: realist
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...slide in productivity and innovation in the American economy; the lessening of American willingness to compromise and horse-trade; the dramatic growth of lobbies and special interest groups; the evolving independence of Congress. In this environment, to make matters worse, Carter came to office more a dreamer than a realist. But he is learning. Says Jordan: "We have readjusted ourselves in a more pragmatic way to the problems we face...
National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski [Sept. 22] is a realist who understands Soviet motives and actions. For this reason, he is considered "controversial" and is disliked by many-in the State Department and media-who minimize and rationalize Soviet expansionism...
...been several additional announcements from the company since, the sum effect of which has been to hoist the lucky couple out of the business world toward the shrines of American folklore. It was also boyish optimism that inspired Agee to make his clarifying gesture in the first place. A realist will always let bad enough alone, but a romantic cannot help himself. And to be fair, how was Agee to know that by making a clean breast of things, which is supposed to be good for the soul as well as part of the American way, he would be snatching...
...This, perhaps, is why one senses so in tense a bond between Hopper and his apparently aloof, disconnected human subjects. The distance between the self and the other was bridged by an acute feeling of common predicament-a much more valuable thing than the compassion routinely expected of social-realist painters...
Your story on New York City [Aug. 18] states that Mayor Edward Koch "has not learned that the last thing hopeless people have need of is a realist." On the contrary, what they need is a mayor who is in touch with the reality of the city's fiscal situation. We can only hope that in the future, fewer politicians will succumb to the lesson you ascribe to Koch...