Word: second-guessing
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...that emphasis has not always been clear. After U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick visited El Salvador in February, the White House let it be known that it wanted to send more military aid and advisers. Some White House staffers began to second-guess the political judgment of Assistant Secretary Enders, who had never before been considered a soft-liner on U.S. policy in El Salvador. Enders was concerned that congressional support for Administration policy might erode without some display of flexibility on the negotiation issue. The Administration's hardening attitude created the feeling that it would...
...found while talking to two dozen of the President's closest associates, from the First Lady to members of the Cabinet. Some eagerly ventured their own theories about Reagan's makeup. Others were keen to discuss, in Stacks' words, "a political touch that causes even those who disagree to second-guess their own wisdom." One source so warmed to the topic that a scheduled 45-min. interview lasted more than five hours...
...when video-tape-machine owners record TV shows at home? A critical case tests the legality of the legislative veto, a device in some 200 laws that allows Congress to disapprove regulations issued by federal agencies. And in cases to be argued this week the Justices may have to second-guess the Reagan Administration's decision last January no longer to support the IRS policy of denying tax exemptions to private schools and colleges that discriminate against nonwhites...
...books are "about" or events that "affected" them, offering instead the anecdote of a farmer neighbor whose barn caught fire several years ago. The entire herd of cattle was brought out unharmed, suffering no visible effects; five months later, though, all the cows miscarried. Rather than assess and second-guess her own delayed shock values. Atwood states her preference for filling the months between novels--when the emotional and creative cycles don't overlap--with writing T.V. docudramas and adaptations, her mental equivalent of a jog around the block...
Under his scheme, "The Court can do a lot of leading--but only in purifying and opening up the political process. For the ultimate role of judges, as Ely saw it, was "not to second-guess the merits of what the political branches have done, but rather to see if it was done fairly." Simple and appealing...