Word: touche
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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That, however, was the only touch of playacting; otherwise the drama of the speech came from its subject and context. Both were important enough to justify fully the President's deep concern with sounding the right tone. His task was to begin rallying public support for a program designed to jolt the U.S. out of what he called "the worst economic mess since the Great Depression." Though details will not be spelled out until next week, enough is known already to make it obvious that the program marks a drastic change in national direction. It combines slashes in federal...
...language was a touch hyperbolic, the analysis heavily simplified, and a figure or two mildly debatable. For example, the President put the prospective deficit in fiscal 1981, which ends Sept. 30, at $80 billion, vs. the commonly cited estimate of less than $60 billion; he was including the activities of federal lending agencies that are not counted in the formal budget. But on the whole, Reagan made an effective, and graciously nonpartisan, statement of his views; he stressed over and over the explosive growth of spending and deficits in the past 20 years, implicitly blaming Republican as well as Democratic...
...criticism that she has failed to cut public spending. We all wish we had cut it earlier and deeper. The problem is that everyone in your political party is very keen on cutting public spending as long as you don't touch their own particular hobbyhorse. We would have been able to cut it much faster and sharper if we hadn't honored the Clegg tribunal [to raise salaries of public service employees to make them comparable with the private sector]. That was an enormous increase. This year the pay to civil servants, local government, nurses...
...even in the White House things get screwed up., For a crucial 30-second period the right people had been in the wrong places, and out of touch. The president's schedule has somehow consumed one 20-minute slot labeled "Crimson interview." Several long moments of hesitation are followed by a show of bureaucratic pity: "We'll see what we can do; maybe a minute or two. Have him wait in the Roosevelt Room...
...some, this statement is sufficient to invoke the moral authority of God against homosexuality But this is clearly a case of selective use of His word. The same book of the Bible also teaches men not to harvest the corners of their fields and not to touch a woman for eight days after she menstruates. Yet we consider these laws "outdated" and ignore them--for good reason. Rules against homosexuality and masturbation also played an important role in preserving the species. But now that we have the opposite population problem, these rules should be considered as obsolete as the others...