It is an extraordinary exercise in large-scale clarification.
It is in my view an extraordinary exercise in self-congratulation.
Mr. Rumsfeld did not fire General Brown, but he did something that was nearly as bad: He put the nation's top military officer through an extraordinary exercise.
In an extraordinary "exercise in self-flagellation," as he calls it, he admits: "I am no longer qualified to take an active role in managing a hedge fund.
"They are embarked on an extraordinary exercise in rebranding," David Axelrod, the former political adviser to President Barack Obama, said of the Kochs.
On the other hand, closer listening, or maybe a different kind of listening, identifies in "Ibéria" not local color but an extraordinary exercise in abstract art.
"It's an extraordinary exercise of American hubris to say that we have the right to seize the money," Mr. Smolla said.
This extraordinary exercise in perpetual motion - played on small drums and tuned percussion, and accompanied by wordless voices - had an audible influence on the rhythms and phasing of minimal German techno of the 1990s.
In fact, the more Abrams talks, the more you realise his entire career – in its movie-making aspects at least – has been an extraordinary exercise in wish-fulfilment, dating back to his childhood.
