His mother had watched with guarded approval.
Gregory H. Friedman, the Energy Department inspector general, who oversaw the recent audit, expressed guarded approval.
Instead there is uncertainty about the Conservatives' approach and strength of their commitment while the Labour administration's achievements over the past 13 years elicits only guarded approval.
And this week Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, got guarded approval from his British counterpart, Tony Blair, for going ahead with a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank if there is no progress in peace talks.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq, gave guarded approval to the new government on Thursday, and so Ms. Samarrai, a Shiite, said she would follow his lead.
On Monday, Dairy Farmers of Canada, an industry advocacy group, expressed guarded approval of the TPP deal.
The resulting message about the richest and most powerful nation could transform already guarded Christian approval into serious reappraisal.
Replacing even the road's wooden guard rails requires approval from federal preservationists.
For Hector Canonge, who makes much of his art on a laptop, and Chin Chih Yang, who likes to project his videos onto public buildings without permission until security guards approach, getting approval from layer after layer of bureaucracy is not usually a major part of the creative process.
He examined the 4-inch length of frog-green fluff, checked the perfectly arced monofilament hook guard, then nodded his approval.
