Word: tinhorn
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...know if he believes all that rubbish." He never says yes or no, never puts his own name to a formal agreement. While his vicious behavior in Kosovo has evoked comparison to Hitler, those who know him say Milosevic doesn't dream so large. "He wants to be the tinhorn dictator of Serbia forever," says a U.S. official. "Beyond that, nothing...
...from the Suez in 1956); and, most important, the goal did not strike at the core of a nation's identity -- sanctions designed to compel the release of kidnapped diplomats, for example, do not challenge vital interests. But when the underlying objective is nothing less than regime toppling, even tinhorn dictators have successfully resisted sanctions. Cuba's Castro has survived for 35 years. Panama's Noriega held on until the 82nd Airborne removed him. Haiti's military thugs promised their resignations when George Bush imposed sanctions in 1991, but they reneged after concluding that ! Clinton lacked the guts to take...
Queen eventually triumphs, of course, thanks to her pluck and the love of a good man (Danny Glover). All of which would be more inspiring if it weren't for the florid melodrama and tinhorn dialogue. The villainous racists do everything but twirl their mustaches. The shallow plantation wives are cliches of another sort: "If it were not for the slave girls," says one, excusing the menfolk's sexual dalliances, "we women would have to submit to our husbands whenever they feel . . . healthy." The young Queen expresses her romantic outlook in sappy lines like "I want to marry a prince...
Such tactics have raised the hackles of Montanans, who do not take kindly to outside interference by what Ron Marlenee, a Republican U.S. Representative, calls "Eastern tinhorn snake-oil salesmen." Marlenee has introduced legislation in Congress that would prohibit interference with the bison hunters on public land. A similar bill failed to pass during the last session...
...speak of a "man of respect," a phrase suggesting, at its darkest reach, a gravitas that can not only hurt but even kill in order to enforce that respect. Gravitas is a phenomenon of power, but the forms and styles of power are various. Dictators are forever strutting the tinhorn's impersonation of gravitas. Brute power is only one of the cruder types, and it is sometimes subdued by other forms: a moral gravitas, for example. Martin Luther King Jr. brought his gravitas to bear against men of power who were morally vacant. Gravitas may be aggression...