Breakage.* One of the most intriguing revelations made in the recent cavalcade of books about the Bush administration was Secretary of State Colin Powell's attempt to explain one of the cardinal rules of shopping to President George W. Bush. In Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack (Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster U.S. publishing company. It was founded in 1924 by Richard L. Simon (1899–1960) and M. Lincoln Schuster (1897–1970), whose initial project, the original crossword-puzzle book, was a best-seller. ), Powell is reported to have warned the president of the consequences of invading Iraq: "You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people. You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You'll own it all." This advice, Woodward explains, was based on what Powell calls "the Pottery Barn rule The Pottery Barn rule is American political jargon alluding to a "you break it, you own it" policy, where a retail store holds a customer responsible for damage done to merchandise on display. : You break it, you own it." The rule may be sagacious sa·ga·cious adj. Having or showing keen discernment, sound judgment, and farsightedness. See Synonyms at shrewd. [From Latin sag foreign-policy advice, but the mall-friendly home-furnishings store was not pleased. "This is very, very far from a policy of ours," said Pottery Barn's PR director Leigh Oshirak. "In the rare instance that something is broken in the store, it's written off as a loss." The New York Daily News New York Daily News Morning daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson and his cousin Robert McCormick as a subsidiary of the Tribune Co. of Chicago. The first successful tabloid-format newspaper in the U.S. quoted State Department spokesman Adam Ereli: "I don't think anybody from the State Department would ever have intended to cast aspersions aspersions npl to cast aspersions on → difamar a, calumniar a aspersions npl to cast aspersions on → dénigrer on Pottery Barn's commitment to customer service." Clearly not. Writing off broken wine glasses is good business sense. Writing off Iraq, however, is not an option. |
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