Word: usual
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Actually, it's pretty clear what Americans want. They want an end to partisan bickering. They want pragmatic solutions, not ideological posturing. They want leaders who reject politics as usual and put the country's interests ahead of the party's. They want a government that will do the right thing, regardless of whether it is "liberal" or "conservative." They don't like labels. And, oh yes, they are tired of spin...
Another name for the much derided "politics as usual" is democracy. Things get disagreeable because people disagree. Ideology is a good thing, not a bad one--and partisanship is at its worst when it is not about ideology. That's when it descends into trivia and slime. Ideology doesn't have to mean mindless intransigence or a refusal to accommodate new evidence or changing circumstances. It is just a framework of basic principles. A framework is more than just a list: all the pieces should fit together...
During the two years of Watergate, many foreigners never really understood its near paralyzing grip on U.S. public attention. They assumed that the scandal was nothing much more than politics as usual. Many Europeans, for example, thought Americans were being unsophisticated, moralistic and, above all, naive to force a President to resign over what looked to them like a minor matter. The scandal now rocking Washington?involving as it does seemingly hypocritical diplomacy, arms deals and the secret funding of a guerrilla army?is much more comprehensible to the rest of the world, even if some of its features seem...
...quite a few. So when the Venezuelan President tapped his older brother Adan for the job last year, few outside Miraflores Palace took notice. They should have. Adan, since then appointed education minister, is Hugo's chief Marxist consultant - and a driving force behind Chavez's harder-than-usual left turn since his re-election last month. Chavez has announced plans to shut down an opposition-run TV network and nationalize Venezuela's largest telephone and electricity firms, while pushing his rubber-stamp Congress to allow him to run for re-election indefinitely and rule by decree well into...
...giant CANTV, and the AES Corporation, which controls Venezuela's main power utility. Chavez asserted this week that while he'll compensate both U.S. firms, he won't pay them a market rate. And when the Bush Administration raised concerns about his burgeoning presidential powers, Chavez replied, in his usual charming fashion, "Go to hell, gringos...