Word: softener
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WASHINGTON, D.C.: Although President Clinton will attempt to soften growing tensions between the U.S. and Mexico on immigration and the drug war on his trip to Mexico Monday, his chief mission will be to trumpet NAFTA's successes as he tries to extend the free trade agreement to all of Latin America by 2005. The President wants Congressional renewal of his "fast-track" authority, which gives Congress the power only to vote yes or no on trade pacts, with no chance to amend them. It will be a tough sell. Although the Administration can show positive numbers from the agreement...
...what the experts will say before they say it. That in times of upheaval and uncertainty, people seek out leaders with power and charisma. That the established churches are too fainthearted to satisfy the wilder kinds of spiritual hunger. That the self-denial and regimentation of cult life will soften up anyone for the kill...
...adults are, it's just that there's less to get underneath in a child. As less self-conscious beings, their social variations are more readily manifested and less easily suppressed. Most haven't been forced to give in to the cruelty of their peers, a resoluteness that will soften into adulthood as we harden into adults...
...proved to be a winning position last year. As Panetta said of Raines in an interview, "Inevitably, he's going to have to hold his cards when it comes to a negotiation." Raines and Bowles wanted to show more flexibility early, on the theory that it might help soften up the opposition. A few days after the election Raines even went so far as to approach G.O.P. strategist Ken Duberstein and House Speaker Newt Gingrich with the idea of writing a budget together--a prospect the Republicans found laughable after fighting a bruising campaign over that very issue...
...themselves against the social and sexual rigidities of their moment. On the other hand, Isabel's unfathomable devotion to the contemptible aesthete Gilbert Osmond (whose black heart John Malkovich always wears on his sleeve) seems in particular to flummox her feminism. This leads her and screenwriter Laura Jones to soften James' bleak conclusion, but long before that, this Portrait has blurred to the point of indistinction...