Word: whim
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...government should determine that these arguments are invalid? Simple: just change the order. That can be done "at the whim of the President," says Michael Glennon, professor of law at the University of California at Davis. Capitol Hill sources assert that President Bush could issue a rewritten order, or, more likely, an "exception" to the standing one, and legally keep it secret. The only way to prevent that would be to write a prohibition against assassinations into law. After congressional investigations in the 1970s turned up evidence of CIA-sponsored assassination plots, attempts were made to enact such...
...snubs, the characters are trapped in a world beyond their control. Like Gatsby, they try to control the world through their social creations--or at least try to convince themselves that they are in control. Their final clubs, their final parties, their finally perfect resumes cannot protect them from whim of nature and arbitrary pain, from the book's dreadful and final resolution...
Under such circumstances every acquisition entails a sacrifice, and there is no margin for error or whim. The Wells children stay home from class skating trips because Sandy cannot manage the $1.50 for skate rental. "They know the value of money, my kids do," she says. "They get money, they don't spend it on candy or toys. They say, 'Mom, I want to buy shoes for school.' " But every now and then, when equanimity ruptures, the family will splurge. One time last fall, Sandy recalls, "we paid the lot rent and we had, like, $40 left. It was supposed...
...says a senior British diplomat who has dealt with him. "Human life means nothing to him." He plays the complex game of Middle East politics by the bareknuckle rules of the region. Says another diplomat: "He does what he thinks is expedient. He is not driven by ideology or whim. He coldly calculates every move. He is simply a brutal and very clever pragmatist." Adds TIME correspondent Dan Goodgame: "On meeting him, a visitor is first struck by his eyes, crackling with alertness and at the same time cold and remorseless as snake eyes on the sides of dice. They...
...that Saddam is cunningly sane. "He is not a lunatic," says a high- ranking Israeli intelligence official. "He is a megalomaniac, but he is rational." Concurs Philip Robins, head of Middle East programs at the London- based Royal Institute of International Affairs: "He is not driven by ideology or whim. He coldly calculates every move...