Word: shrewdness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Long before the oil came in, the Kuwaitis were known as shrewd traders. They plied the seas from the Indian subcontinent to the East African coast and almost always turned a profit. So it is not surprising that today, with the oil fires still burning and a return to normal life nowhere in sight, Kuwait's greatest effort involves merchandising its destitution...
Syrian President Hafez Assad ordinarily is no one's idea of a cooperative statesman, not with his record as a bloodily repressive dictator. But Assad is shrewd enough to sense which way the winds of world power are blowing. So last week he accepted the American formula for a Middle East peace conference. That, in effect, made him the first Arab leader since Egypt's Anwar Sadat to agree to public, direct peace talks with Israel: that is what the conference is supposed to lead to, after a brief ceremonial opening...
...transcript survived, however, as did at least one other copy of the tape made by the original eavesdropper. The Richmond gossip circuit became aware of the material, causing Wilder, while on a trip to Europe, to break the story in a phone interview with the Post. It was a shrewd ploy by the Governor, moving attention from the content of the tape to Robb's possession of it and portraying Wilder as the "victim" of a crime...
...year later, Rumsfeld and Cheney were back in the White House as part of Gerald Ford's transition team. Cheney succeeded his old pal as chief of staff, gaining a reputation as a cool, self-effacing, politically shrewd manager. After Ford's loss to Jimmy Carter, Cheney ran for Wyoming's one seat in the House. He won, although during the G.O.P. primary he suffered the first of his three heart attacks...
...level, which is left to muggers and the homeless. In Guntersville he lives with a borrowed dog (as a people-meeting device, a good substitute for a boat), hears his speech patterns slowing and finds the local religiosity more comfortable than off-putting. Now and then he does a shrewd job of reporting, as when he describes tensions among Korean immigrant men in Seattle, trying successfully to make money and unsuccessfully to rule their wives and daughters...