Carville, who had begun as something perilously close to a joke, emerged between the New York primary and the Democratic Convention as the real coordinator of the Clinton effort.
There was an (admittedly brief) personal passage about his upbringing, a couple of stirring quotations, even something close to a joke.
His novel The Interrogation (1963), which he now calls "close to a joke", was about a dropout squatting in a holiday home on the French riviera, unsure whether he has deserted from the army or escaped from a lunatic asylum.
Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told the BBC the case was "close to a joke", built purely on media reports.
She closes with a joke, albeit a tempered one.
He leaned in close and mumbled a joke about a mutual acquaintance who evidently suffered from "fat legs and bad breath".
He leaned in close and mumbled a joke about a mutual acquaintance who evidently suffered from "fat legs and bad breath". Harlech whooped with laughter and wagged a finger at him.
The closest thing to a joke about Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, who led the witch hunts, is Milt's description of him as "a United States senator who giggles like Porky the Pig".
To a user named @joebell77, or Joe Bella, who accused the governor of "glorifying a drug user" over more deserving figures, closing with "Yo what a joke," Mr. Christie's Twitter feed responded: "@joebell77 You are a joke.
At what point in the conversation did a joke help close a sale?
The Na'vi's turf is also rich with an energy-yielding mineral called Unobtainium (which is as close as Cameron comes to a joke in this movie).
