Word: wonking
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...Sperling, 40, even issued the standard non-denial denial: "We're just friends." To be fair, Sperling is not all aggregate demand and no play. A few years ago, W magazine named him "one of the hottest catches on the Washington social scene" and "an unusually likable policy wonk." Campbell, 30, has been linked to Joseph Fiennes, Robert De Niro and U2's Adam Clayton, among others. She is also known to cause rapid GDP growth and demand-pull inflation...
Quiet and intense, O'Neill described himself recently as a "free-ranging, self-admitted maverick," but he's also a wonk, drilling down into the details of a problem personally until he finds what he wants. When Hillary Clinton's health-care plan came out in 1994, O'Neill stayed up all night and read the 240-page document. "Mention Social Security to some people," says former U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills, who serves with O'Neill on the board of Lucent Technologies, "and their eyes glaze over. But Paul's eyes light up. He knows about the details...
...York Times reports that George W. was less than overwhelmed after sitting down with his vice-president's choice, former Indiana senator Dan Coats. Coats, who led the charge against gays in the military in 1993, is a favorite of the far-right crowd, but may not be the wonk Bush is looking for. And so Paul Wolfowitz, who did Asia-expert duties for Reagan and tutor duties for W. during the campaign, is back in the running...
...Governor, Jeb was a smirk-free policy wonk, working from dawn till dusk with no breaks for video games or naps. Yet he became a warm-up act, introducing W. as "my older, smarter and wiser brother." Sometimes appearing disengaged in the campaign, he volunteered to reporters, "You know, George doesn't have to win Florida to win the election," as if the pressure to produce were misplaced. During the final push, Jeb dodged inquiries about his effort by saying how much he loved his brother. W. joked that if Jeb didn't deliver, he'd "be washing...
...most famous wonk to blow a sax was, of course, Bill Clinton, the main subject of Greil Marcus's new essay collection Double Trouble: Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley in a Land of No Alternatives. Marcus, a rock-n-roll critic best known for lively volumes on Elvis, Bob Dylan and the Sex Pistols, pinpoints Clinton's appearance on Arsenio Hall as the turnaround of his 1992 presidential bid. Considered a sure loser against Bush and Perot, Clinton swaggered on stage with his tenor saxophone, wailed a few bars of "Heartbreak Hotel" and instantly won enough support to capture...