He has been careful not to impugn all profit-seeking, or even all private equity, yet it's hard to see how it's possible to attack Mr Romney for the alleged depredations of Bain Capital without implicitly attacking other profit-seekers responsible for similar labour-market churn.
Bob Herz, the FASB's chairman, decried those who "impugn our motives".
Thus it proved when Labour unveiled a poster depicting the face of William Hague wearing Lady Thatcher's hair managing to impugn his independence while snidely alluding to his baldness.
When someone makes false personal allegations that impugn a person's character or integrity, the victim has the right to vindicate his reputation.
A president who spent the Vietnam war in the Texas Air National Guard, presumably defending the Lone Star State from possible bombing by Oklahoma, can hardly impugn the patriotism of a gunboat officer.
But formally giving up the claim is something no Indian prime minister could contemplate unless he was absolutely sure that no one would impugn him as weak, unpatriotic or pro-China.
"It is pointless to impugn the motives" of those who drafted the detention and interrogation policies, he writes.
Informal approvals from the agencies and ministers concerned, it advises, should be gained before the investment is made.Few would want to impugn the integrity of Austrian officialdom, which issues, Christian Kälin, a lawyer at Henley & Partners, estimates, only a few dozen such passports each year.
No Indian prime minister could ignore such a call to arms unless he were absolutely sure no one would impugn him as weak, unpatriotic or pro-China.
The president and his allies regularly impugn Mr Rafsanjani's integrity and that of his children, one of whom happens to run the Tehran metro.True to his reputation for wilfulness, Mr Ahmadinejad seems to have turned a deaf ear to Mr Khamenei's request that he lay off Mr Rafsanjani, who remains a firm if undeclared supporter of the opposition movement.
Mr Fallows hesitates to impugn Mr Orszag's personal character.
