Word: term
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...State Confusion Chutzpah is the term that comes to mind when reading settler Israel Katz's response to President Obama's efforts to solve the West Bank - settlement issue [July 27]. Israel accepted $2.4 billion in aid last year from U.S. taxpayers, yet the Katz family and fellow settlers tell us to "butt out." Californians could use that money to ease our budget crisis, and we know better than to bite the hand that feeds us. Others, clearly, do not. Doris Concklin, Carmichael, Calif...
...Half the Battle Aquino also understood, like nelson mandela, that the enduring success of People Power depends upon the leaders it thrusts into office knowing how to make a graceful exit. Even though the Filipino electorate would surely have granted her another presidential term, she anointed a political successor, Fidel Ramos, and eased into retirement. Yet Aquino's example has not been fully followed in her homeland, where another woman President, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, has taken advantage of electoral loopholes to elongate her tenure. Far worse are the Robert Mugabes of the world, once genuine heroes who long outlived their...
...hard-nosed ones seem particularly worth pointing out. First, political sainthood is a gift from heaven with a Cinderella deadline - once past midnight, you are a pumpkin. Second, personal virtues are never a guarantee of effective or successful governance. What was truly shocking about Aquino's tumultuous six-year term as President of the Philippines was that those maxims proved untrue. Midnight always threatened Aquino but never struck; and she was a good woman whose goodness alone, at the very end, was what proved enough, if only by an iota, to save her country...
...after a popular rebellion in 1986 overthrew Marcos and proclaimed her President in his stead, Benigno Aquino's widow lasted more than six months; indeed, she lasted her entire six-year term. Furthermore, she retained a whiff of sanctity even as her government rotted, even as Filipinos worked hard to prove George Orwell's aphorism that saints are guilty until proven innocent. As Aquino ruled, every month seemed to diminish the political miracle of her astonishing rise to power, but she survived. And her survival guaranteed the continuation of democracy in her homeland...
...warranted when the President promises to cut costs while simultaneously providing coverage to nearly 50 million uninsured people. It is even more warranted when his congressional allies seek to raise taxes to pay for all the new spending that this cost-cutting entails. We aren't talking about short-term spending either; this isn't a trillion-dollar investment in a new system that will ultimately save money. The Congressional Budget Office says the leading health care reform proposals will increase health care spending and make the budget harder to balance in the long run. Yet saving money...