Word: watchdogging
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...against the East, wooed two independent Senators into his party, and won the full parliamentary majority that he had lacked at the start. Along the way, he also broadened his support among military men, including Turkish President Cevdet Sunay, a career army general who is in effect the army watchdog over Demirel's government. Thus fortified, Demirel pressed ahead with his development program...
...Novelist Hubert Selby Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn, a stomach-turning homosexual excursion, which the British government refused to act against on the theory that the book probably had literary merit. Balderdash, retorted Sir Cyril Black, a Conservative M.P., friend of Evangelist Billy Graham and watchdog of British public morals...
...precedent invites "any crank to start proceedings against a book he does not like. All you need is a friendly magistrate." As a result, the publishers are now practically begging the government to prosecute-with a jury. Their hope is obviously to give the book nationwide legal approval. Watchdog Black is all for it. As he sees it, this time a jury could not help ruling in his favor...
...stem from a fear that the new agency would be either too political to be worthwhile or would be too free- wheeling. One critic said that the problem of "who gets which requests answered first" would ruin the office's independence. Another said that "Congress must remain its own watchdog and that beefed-up committee staffs would be much more effective...
...back as 1809, Sweden invented just such a "people's watchdog" and gave him a name, ombudsman, which means representative. Sweden's current ombudsman, Alfred Bexelius, 63, is a unique national mediator who serves the public by prodding laggard civil servants. He and his ten assistants already have counterparts in Denmark, Finland, Norway and New Zealand. Britain recently joined the movement by appointing a "parliamentary commission," and agitation for the appointment of ombudsmen has suddenly become popular all over the U.S. So far, however, the word does not even appear in U.S. dictionaries...