Then she said, peeved, as if defending her ground of smock dresses and ballet slippers, "Are they made for children's bodies?" Actually, no.
They crouch — sometimes so low they can slap their palms on the floor — as if defending against a threat more dangerous than an opponent with a basketball.
Clinton responded by stating that if defending reproductive rights and calling for equal pay amounted to playing the gender card, "then deal me in".
In effect, if defending his teammates and being everyone's captain — starters and scrubs, black and white — meant Reed was an Uncle Tom in Russell's eyes, so be it.
If defending was the obvious shortcoming a week earlier, this was a story of one team, Norwich, almost incapable of taking their chances, and another incapable of making them.
"LeBron is the most talented and highest-performing basketball player on the planet, and he's had a fairly legitimate claim to this title for nearly a decade," he e-mailed me recently, as if defending a dissertation.
Seymour said that Stewart may have had two intentions when she spoke, but bolstering the stock price of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia was one, even if defending her honor might have been another.
Sidebar: Over at MSNBC's longform Starbucks commercial, Gregory's colleague Joe Scarborough chides Greenwald for being "defensive," as if defending your right to produce journalism is somehow gauche.
Only the morbidly curious might find interest in the other match to see if defending champion Spain completes its self-destruction -- or if an unofficial Cup record for lineup changes is set.
When Nicole had her HIV scare Holy Soap said "As if defending her man against the Bay's critics wasn't enough for one girl to take, poor Nic".
