Word: temperments
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...missing from this student’s political outlook. As for his moral outlook, well, let me just say that I’m glad no one close to me died that day—otherwise, I’m not sure if I could have restrained my inflamed temper. Of course, this same student, and many like him, had spent his days at Harvard joining mindlessly every liberal or progressive-sounding cause. This time, though, he followed the lemmings...
...left the gathering the sheik heard mutterings from young men and responded with, what to us seemed a baffling and melodramatic temper tantrum, casting his headdress on the ground, covering his head with ashes from an outside grill while the dismayed young men rushed to reassure him. My interpreter later explained that the youths said they should kill the foreigners, Kurdish interpreter included, rather than ask for their help. Unaware of this at the time, we headed for the Tikrit bridge with a negotiator from the tribe. I stayed with the man whose name I have lost, while he talked...
...Appearing before reporters with British Prime Minister Tony Blair last Thursday, George W. Bush let loose a double dose of presidential petulance. He fidgeted, he frowned, and he scowled at questioners. At one point Bush spoke over Blair as the Prime Minister tried to answer a question. Bush's temper had grown short, aides said, because doubts about the war's progress were growing just when Bush was trying to get out a message of resolve. Reports of Iraqi irregular forces harassing U.S. troops up and down the road to Baghdad--faking surrenders, springing ambushes, firing from commuter buses...
...This is the sort of intellectual stubbornness that rarely makes an appearance in Washington today. Successful politicians, including, most recently, Bill Clinton, usually temper their sharp intelligence with an ability to communicate in populist terms. The policy wonk who lacks a light touch - think Al Gore or Paul Simon - is subject to attack by the popular press for what is perceived as snobbery, while our less intellectually engaged politicians - think George W. Bush or Tim Hutchinson - are lauded for their ability to connect with voters...
...matter. What Langley, a veteran Wall Street Journal reporter, does give us in this book is a richly reported recent history of Wall Street and corporate America told through an oversize personality. Weill is a gregarious man with a blowtorch temper and a need to be loved. And he is a window on the shareholder revolt against corporate bloat that raged through the 1980s...