Word: softens
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...Taipei's advantage. While the standoff won't necessarily increase the likelihood of Taiwan's being sold the weapons it desires, it's unlikely to have decreased that likelihood. The Bush administration won't use Taiwan arms sales to punish Beijing, but it may find it difficult to soften its position on the Aegis sale in the wake of the standoff. And on Capitol Hill, the price of rapprochement with Beijing is usually expanded support for Taiwan. Which is why for Taipei, the standoff was always a win-win proposition...
...that end, Senate Democrats on Wednesday proposed a series of amendments designed to soften the bill, including several proposals making it harder for minors to obtain credit cards without their parents' signature. All were defeated, and the bill - which still enjoys wide bipartisan support in both houses - was headed for passage...
...having watched Powell soften Washington's line on sanctions against Iraq during his Mideast tour, the hawks weren't about to allow him to start sending flowers to their favorite bogeyman in Pyongyang. North Korea's missile program is Exhibit A in the case for building a national missile defense, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, for one, has spent much of the past five years talking up the imminent missile threat from Pyongyang as a reason to hurry the deployment of a missile shield. If North Korea's missiles could be negotiated away for a couple of hundred million dollars...
...Senator John Kerry, clearly yearning to snatch any jobs in the Bush administration for token Democrats from current forerunners Zell Miller and John Breaux, not only applauded when other Democrats sat on their hands, but even gave several standing ovations. Across the aisle, Bush's cabinet tried to soften its image. John Ashcroft and Christine Todd Whitman applauded the end of racial profiling as if he hadn't spoken at Bob Jones University and she hadn't posed for pictures while smiling and frisking a black man. From the podium, Bush too sent messages. His attempts at bipartisanship included announcing...
...there wasn't much House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt could do about it Thursday except squawk as loudly as he could - "This is the most irresponsible legislative act that I've ever seen, a rush to judgment," said Gephardt - and try to soften the political ground in the one place where Bush needs Democratic votes badly enough to negotiate a little: the 50-50 Senate...