In its early minutes, the three-hour debate threatened to devolve once more into the Trump Show, with the mogul and TV personality introducing himself as the author of bestselling business tome The Art of the Deal.
Each party should offer the American people a slate of its best, most innovative and inspiring thinkers rather than have the election process devolve once again into an egocentric, negative politics of personal attack.
If Gbago survives or the country devolves once again into civil war, it will send an unmistakable signal that, despite President Obama's calls for Africans to take responsibility for good governance, that message has not yet been widely adopted.
The town of Ferguson had once again devolved into a rolling battle between police and looters, as calls for peace went unheeded.
As a result, Port Chester's five bids over the years to become a city have proved abortive, devolving at least once into "a huge yelling and screaming match," recalled Peter P. Iasillo, the village's mayor from 1980 to 1993.
Inevitably, the rage on both sides has seeped into official Washington, where the once collegial Senate devolved this year into a contest of dueling and vituperative filibusters and where pettiness in the House reached such a level that Bill Thomas, the Republican Ways and Means chairman, tried to have Democratic lawmakers arrested for leaving a hearing.
While the original Star Wars trilogy took place in a time of struggle, with a once-prosperous society devolved into chaos and division, it still seems remarkable that the future of the galaxy was entrusted on more than once occasion to a trundling tin can and his garrulous golden sidekick.
It highlights concerns about whether the health system will remain accountable to parliament once the system is devolved and there is "no single national headquarters for the NHS".
A lot of what once was conversation has devolved into warfare.
