Word: softener
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When renegade House Republicans made a last-ditch attempt to soften President Bush's tough savings-and-loan bailout bill last week, there was nothing wimpy about his response. As the House debated the legislation, the President corralled congressional leaders and took his cause to the people. "It is time for the American public and our Administration to say that enough is enough," Bush said. If the House weakened the stringent new regulations of the bill, the President warned, he would veto it. By week's end Bush prevailed when the House approved a strong bailout bill by a vote...
...nations had become apparent just two weeks before the cease-fire decision, when a U.S. frigate mistakenly shot down an Iranian jetliner with 290 people aboard: international response was notably muted. In the following months, leading Iranian politicians such as Parliamentary Speaker Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 54, attempted to soften their country's radical image. But Khomeini would have none of it. Last February he prompted a worldwide outcry when he demanded the death of Salman Rushdie, the Indian-born, British author of The Satanic Verses, a book many regard as blasphemous to Islam. "It is incumbent on every Muslim...
...offer no-frills clarity and a finely balanced call for concessions from both sides. In a sharp and wise departure from Reagan-era practice, his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, the most influential pro-Israel lobby, eliminated the sugarcoated reassurances that traditionally soften American urgings to Israel...
...announcement which soothes concerns over a possible breach in the Western Alliance, Baker said in Bonn that West Germany still supports a project to upgrade missiles. But Baker also appeared to soften U.S. demands that NATO endorse the plan this spring...
...executive producer of ABC's thirtysomething. "Network TV still has a terrible attitude toward sex." With regard to political controversy too, the networks seem as timid as ever. Shootdown, the recent NBC movie about the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, was altered at network insistence to soften its charges of a U.S. Government cover-up. Midnight Caller, already the target of protests from homosexual groups over a segment on AIDS airing next week, was forced to tone down the anti-capital punishment message in another upcoming episode. The network menu may be getting spicier, but bland still seems...