Since the Russian troops moved into Crimea, Merkel has said little publicly, confining herself to a few anodyne comments about "preserving the territorial integrity" of Ukraine.
The state news channel, the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network, had not mentioned the phone call with Mr. Obama as of midnight Friday after word of it broke, and the original messages on Mr. Rouhani's Twitter account were deleted and replaced with more anodyne comments.
External impressions are being formed on the basis of anodyne comments, augmented by commercially slanted releases by personal sponsors which rarely rise beyond the banal.
The teenager restricted himself to a few polite but anodyne comments about his own performance preferring, as ever, to focus on the success of the team.
Everything she says seems to cause offense (even anodyne comments like "I love your mom"), and Chelsea finds herself having to hide her own feelings of grief lest she be accused of hypocrisy.
When she announced her bid for the Senate, she gave a few of her friends permission to speak with reporters, but several of those friends, after making the most anodyne or laudatory comments, panicked and withdrew them, or demanded anonymity.
On the other hand, as I have said, and my viewpoint is every bit as valid to hold as yours, I do not see the point of independent production company-patronised pit lane dollies, when there are plenty of people of both sexes who could do a good job and not make such anodyne and puerile comments.
Mostly people are happy to talk, certainly the fear that kept their comments often anodyne and far from politics before the revolution, has completely changed.
(Jared Kushner declined to comment. Josh Kushner emailed an anodyne statement about Williams and Cadre). Over the past two years, Trump has busted a lot of norms, many derived from emoluments issues and a family which continues to own wide-ranging business interests while leading the federal government.
