Word: aback
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...White House was taken aback by charges of cronyism after the abrupt dismissal of its seven-member travel staff, which arranges travel for government officials and receives payment from news organizations for the same service. Accusing the longtime staffers of "gross mismanagement," the Administration insisted its action was not a response to complaints by Hollywood producer Harry Thomason, an intimate of the Clintons who has friends in the charter-airplane business. Facing an uproar when a cousin of the President was named to head an interim operation, while an Arkansas travel agency -- whose owner contributed to the Clinton campaign...
During the tour, Thorne was particularly taken aback when Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina publicly lectured him about his homosexuality. "Your life-style is not normal," Thurmond said as the audience at the base applauded wildly. "It's not normal for a man to want to be with a man or a woman with a woman." Thurmond then asked if Thorne had ever sought help from "medical or psychiatric aids...
...J.F.K. airport in New York City for Virgin Atlantic flights were often surprised when agents met them, apologized for scheduling problems, then steered them to British Airways flights. What they did not know was that the agents were really B.A. employees. Other passengers planning trips on Virgin were taken aback when called at home by British Airways employees offering them incentives to switch to B.A. That was only the half...
Before a slew of television reporters and a crowd of more than 80, Ashe said in a brief acceptance speech that he was "taken aback" by the award and said he hoped to "grow tall into the crown of leadership...
...Arsenio Hall, Stern threw fuel on the flames by trashing Hall (a "moron") as well as former Johnny Carson cronies Doc Severinsen and Ed McMahon ("two of the biggest loads on two feet"). At her press conference last spring, Bill Clinton's alleged ex-girlfriend Gennifer Flowers was taken aback when a Stern reporter asked whether Clinton used a condom. When Today's Katie Couric opened the phone lines during a June appearance by Ross Perot, a Stern shill got through with a bogus question about the radio host's sexual organ...