In his obsessive dithering over the exact state and direction of his wife's affections, Ray abuses his C.I.A. powers, focussing all his attention on his perceived rival, Morel, while ignoring, against Boyle's orders, a benign agricultural theorist, the Scots-educated Botswana native Samuel Kerekang, who turns out to be the real disturber of the national order.
One of the reasons more than a dozen Gingrich staff members quit in the spring was that he would not agree to go negative against perceived rivals, including Tim Pawlenty, a former Minnesota governor who quit the race, and Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, who decided not to run.
He may also be the next leader to fall as the country's Shiite prime minister takes aim at perceived rivals and enemies, his fate a litmus test for a country in crisis.
The movie is unkind to Kate's perceived rivals, both male and female.
When one ethnic group captures political power and excludes its perceived rivals, ethno-nationalist conflict is likely to increase, potentially descending into civil war.
Agents took payoffs and leaked information, the lawyers said, allowing the gang to escape prosecution, maintain their illegal operations and retaliate against perceived rivals by killing them.
All the clichés of Mafia doings, from rubbing out perceived rivals, controlling unions on the merchant-ship waterfront or doing the rounds of small businesses and shaking them down for protection money, are still going on in real life.
Despite many myths about Degas's later years, some encouraged by the artist himself, he did not (until the very end) retreat from the art world, but rather he promoted his work energetically and closely followed the careers of perceived rivals such as Monet and Cézanne.
Tsarnaeva, of North Bergen, New Jersey, is facing separate charges in New York, where she is accused of threatening to "put a bomb" on a perceived romantic rival.
