Word: cudgeling
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...November, Rudd was on a roll as he addressed Sydney's Centre for Independent Studies, whose spiritual core revolves around free markets and individual liberty. He took a cudgel to the think tank's idol, Friedrich Hayek, and his "intellectual creature" John Howard for what he termed their assault on social justice. Rudd described a modern dystopia of debt and high interest rates, materialism, childhood obesity, time pressure on families and societal anxiety about the future. "The dilemma for the political right is that, in John Howard's Australia, it's not supposed to be like that," Rudd argued...
...bellicose when the subject comes to Belarus. The state-run TV channel has started calling the Lukashenko regime "impulsive and fraudulent," with political commentary depicting Belarus as a virtual enemy state, rather than an erstwhile ally. The fear in Belarus is that Russia is using energy supplies as a cudgel to take over Belarus' economy in order to forcibly reintegrate Belarus into the Russian federation. Indeed, Lukashenko played on those fears at the Orthodox Christmas rites last night at the Minsk Cathedral, delivering a pledge to preserve Belarus' sovereignty. But now with Europe's dependence on Russian oil in play...
Olmert's actions have followed a certain logic of Israeli politics. A weak response to the kidnappings could have given his political opponents a handy cudgel with which to pound him. Olmert was particularly vulnerable because of his lack of security credentials--in a country that often entrusts high political office to its war heroes. During his compulsory military service, Private Olmert found glory as a mere reporter for the army's radio and journal. (At age 35, seven years into his career as a member of the Knesset, he enrolled in an officer-training course, emerging as a second...
Kicking off a new campaign aimed at turning recent revelations about a surveillance program from a political embarrassment to a political cudgel, President Bush rechristened the electronic monitoring that has been widely described as domestic spying or snooping. "Let me talk about... something that you've been reading about in the news lately," he told an audience of 9,000 soldiers and clean-cut Kansas college students Monday afternoon. "It's what I would call a 'terrorist surveillance program...
...income residents with cheap heating oil this winter. Chávez has surpassed his good friend Fidel Castro as the anti-U.S. idol of the Latin American masses--and as a model for other populist leaders in the region, although few have his petroleum resources to use as a cudgel...