Word: realpolitikers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...editors. But in this case, we believe we must. The reader's argument, in its beguiling simplicity, contains all of the follies of the Cold War and the tragedy in Vietnam wrapped up into two sentences. This reader wants America to follow blindly our fearless leader for Realpolitik reasons. George Bush would love that. But the the U.S. should never plunge into war without debating it in a national forum. Obviously, Bush thinks he's right. But that is no reason for Congress to forfeit its Constitutional prerogative to question the president's judgment...
Then there is what might be called Bush's lack of moral imagination and empathy. After the massacre in Tiananmen Square, he said, "This is not the time for an emotional response." In this case and others, like Lithuania, there have been realpolitik reasons -- perhaps sufficient reasons -- for not cutting off the offending regime. But Bush's repeated cool response to distant suffering and struggles gives the impression that at some level he just doesn't get it. He may give his coat to a beggar on the street -- noblesse oblige -- but his sleep is not disturbed by things...
...recent years, of course, the spreading of the global village has made cross-purposing a little easier. We think it only natural to ask for hors d'oeuvres from a maitre d' -- as natural, perhaps, as discussing Realpolitik and the Zeitgeist with a Hamburger. And as English has become a kind of lingua franca, all of us are fluent in Franglais and in Japlish. It really is possible for an un-self-made man, arriving in Paris, to ask a mademoiselle for a rendezvous and then take her for le fast food and le dancing and even, perhaps, le parking...