Word: standoffish
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...should have seen me at the beginning. I'm up from zero." Having mastered what he calls his "inside game"--a thorough command of detail--he says he is working on his "outside game"--reaching voters with broad themes and symbols. Though Bradley can be standoffish to fellow Senators, he jokes easily with voters on the campaign trail. In an age of media-slick politicians, Bradley's very plainness can be refreshing. "There's a nice quiet irony and modesty about him," says Political Media Consultant Robert Squier. "He comes across as a thoughtful man, not necessarily a disqualification...
Moreover, this bizarre devotion is taken for normal. Students should be slavish followers of sports teams. A Harvard undergraduate who doesn't give a damn whether the hockey team wins or loses is thought odd, standoffish. Sadly, the men who run Harvard feel the same...
...would be a pushover after meeting him in Vienna in 1961 and a year later began installing nuclear missiles in Cuba; just six months after Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev embraced in Vienna in 1979, Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan. Summitry is obviously a risky venture, but after four standoffish years, President Reagan is now eager to follow the practice of his eight predecessors...
...Reagan Administration has been standoffish, giving the Arab overtures wary encouragement while avoiding, at least for the time being, any direct involvement. In his press conference last week, the President said that the U.S. "did not want to participate in the negotiations--it wouldn't be any of our business to do so." He added, however, that he had "complimented" Mubarak for his work and that the U.S. would "do whatever we could to help bring the warring parties together...
...process, Israel's melting pot has, on occasion, become a cauldron of hostilities. The Ashkenazim have lampooned what they see as the less disciplined and sophisticated Sephardim, and the Sephardim, in turn, have scorned the standoffish Ashkenazim. In a few particularly ugly instances, the Sephardim have been dubbed "Khomeinis"; they have responded by calling their antagonists "Aske-nazis." Even Prime Ministers, including European-born David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir, have spoken darkly of the dangers of "mob rule" and sweepingly written off "the primitive Arab mentality" of the Sephardim...