Word: swinging
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Wednesday night, I ran into a friend in the Winthrop courtyard. It was cold and very clear. Orion, one of three constellations I can identify, hung in the southwestern sky, his belt and sword bright. We could see our breath. I started to push my friend on the tire swing, and he asked whether I knew “Dover Beach...
...heart,” I said, “but it’s one of my favorite poems.” So he began reciting it as he swept back and forth over the frozen ground of the courtyard, the tire swinging all out of rhythm with the meter—“The sea is calm tonight./ The tide is full, the moon lies fair/ Upon the straits.” My breath made little quick-dissolving clouds in front of my face. Every now and then a car passed on Memorial Drive. Ice had started...
Considered to be one of the most crucial swing states, the spotlight disappeared from Ohio quickly after news outlets called the state’s 20 electoral votes for President Bush. But both before and after the election, multiple Ohio newspapers reported on a string of voting irregularities, including serious concerns about how thousands of votes were counted. Many of these worries stem from the balloting machinery in Ohio: while only about 12 percent of the nation votes by punch card, the infamous ballot system that muddled the 2000 presidential election in Florida, about three-quarters of Ohio residents...
...ordinary politician tells swing voters what they want to hear; Bush invited them to vote for him because he refused to. Ordinary politicians need to be liked; Bush finds the hostility of his critics reassuring. Challengers run as outsiders, promising change; it's an extraordinary politician who tries this while holding the title Leader of the Free World. Ordinary Presidents have made mistakes and then sought to redeem themselves by admitting them; when Bush was told by some fellow Republicans that his fate depended on confessing his errors, he blew them...
...seemed to do the reverse. In the summer of 2000 he delivered a bridge-building address to the N.A.A.C.P.; in the summer of 2004 he snubbed the organization. Two-thirds of Americans favored extension of the assault-weapons ban; in September he conspicuously let it die. He repeatedly offered swing voters expressly what they told pollsters they did not want: a multiyear commitment in Iraq, a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, Social Security private accounts, restricted federal funding of stem-cell research. The most he would do is hint that radioactive Attorney General John Ashcroft wouldn't make...