Word: smugness
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...Yorker as Across the Street and into the Grill) had strong popular support; it stood firmly at the top of the bestseller list. There was also moral support from fellow Writer Evelyn Waugh. The critics, wrote Waugh in London's Catholic weekly, the Tablet, ". . . have been smug, condescending, derisive, some with unconcealed glee, some with an affectation of pity; all are agreed that there is a great failure to celebrate ... I believe the truth is that they have detected in him something they find quite unforgivable-Decent Feeling. Behind all the bluster and cursing and fisticuffs...
There is fascination and topical interest in Napoleon's hodgepodge. Back of every chapter lies the self-portrait of a dictator who, like his successors of the present century, made the so-called "logic" of a situation his only criterion of right & wrong. His smug account of an episode during his conquest of Italy...
...very mode of expression of the unnamed spokesman for the American Psychological Association who views as "dismal" the acceptance of a teaching position which is open only to those who are able to deny that they are traitors to the U.S. [TIME, Sept. 18] bespeaks the smug sort of pseudo-intellectual among whom radicalism is considered fashionable...
Adapting a play by John Dighton, Scripter-Director Launder gives them both plenty of opportunities. Sim plays the smug, hand-rubbing headmaster of a boys' school who is thrown for a loss when a mixed-up Ministry of Education dumps a girls' school on the premises. ("Someone," he moans, "is guilty of an appalling sexual aberration.") Headmistress Rutherford is the formidably efficient battle-ax who leads the invasion, tackles one of the problems of boys-&-girls-together by canceling biology classes...
...waved the numbers in the faces of his wing and group commanders. "Al, your maintenance is down to 62%," LeMay might say. "Joe's is up to 72%. He's got the same problems you have. How come? Now, Joe, don't look so damned smug. Your costs are up . . ." One colonel complained that he was being marked down for "an act of God," because an eagle had damaged one of his planes in flight. LeMay sucked on his pipe, replied in a flat, low voice: "I'm not interested in distinguishing between the unfortunate...