Word: fractiousness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...nature abhors a vacuum, so too does the Kremlin. Yeltsin's latest disappearance overlapped the humiliating attack by Chechen separatists that gave them back control of their capital, Grozny. The President's absence allowed his fractious advisers to play out their own power struggle with the lives of thousands of Chechen civilians and Russian soldiers. Conflicting views within the Russian government about how to respond produced astounding zigzags in policy. Even as the Chechen war seemed to subside at week's end with dramatic news of a truce and maybe even a peace agreement, there was a sense that...
...have more work to do; the women can savor the fruits of a building project four years in the making. Though the U.S. women won a bronze medal in Barcelona, the program was plagued by controversy. The coaches were fractious, the girls looked unhappy and undernourished, and criticism began to emerge that the program drove adolescent girls too hard in service of demanding parents and coaches. Much of the criticism was aimed at Karolyi, the former Romanian coach who brought the world Nadia Comaneci and later trained such U.S. stars as Mary Lou Retton and Kim Zmeskal...
...wide was the reach of The Bust, as it immediately was known, that it brought the normally fractious Harvard community into rare unity. A Soldiers' Field rally of 11,000 students and faculty produced a strike. Classes turned into floating picnics; strike T-shirts and arm bands entered the realm of high fashion; and nightly political meetings of Politburo duration became the after-dinner activity of choice. For some, there might be dancing 'til dawn, with drugs and sex in abundance. Harvard now had far more pressing things to do than police its students' bodies...
Meanwhile, Republicans on Capitol Hill find themselves outflanked by the Democrats on popular issues like raising the minimum wage. So fractious and demoralized last year, the Democrats perform now like a synchronized swim team, setting the legislative agenda despite their minority status. Minimum-wage talking points are lofted among them like balloons. The budget passed last week provided billions of dollars for programs that Republicans had sworn to kill. In April, when Dole shelved the immigration bill after Democrats tried to attach riders on both the minimum wage and Social Security, he reminded the opposition sourly, "We have the majority...
...didn't. (Imagine Bill's Dilemma: Will it hurt me with my liberal base if I sign it? Will it poison me with Perot voters if I don't?) But Dole's world is changed now. He must reckon with a possibly uncooperative House, led by fractious freshmen who suspect Dole of selling out and last week pleaded with Dick Armey to be their champion. He must deal with the dogged Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle, and the filibustering Democrats doing their damnedest to obstruct and water down any legislation...