But last night he was comfortable in his cordiality, because he knew he would hold back.
It was the battle between the creationists and the secularists — or, more accurately, among the previously friendly neighbors who in 2004 shed their cordiality to enlist in an ideological battle when the school board voted to add the so-called intelligent design theory to the ninth-grade biology curriculum.
He had a welcome of great warmth and cordiality in every space where the throngs waited the Royal progress.
When he was chief minister of Gujarat state, Mr Modi was treated with lavish cordiality in China.
While it was not quite as momentous as, say, the Christmas truce that briefly interrupted the slaughter on the Western Front in 1914, the cordiality was certainly unusual.
One of the book's most entertaining passages relates the curious history of J. J.'s son John Shubert, whose relative cordiality in business comes as a relief after his father's maniacal cruelty.
China and Russia are leading the opposition to the Bush administration's plans for missile defense, and the administration recognizes that the impetus for today's show of cordiality in Moscow was prompted by this shared resistance.
Quite what she attempted to achieve is unclear, and though she was eventually asked to leave, the mosque's statement on the matter is a masterclass in low-key cordiality.
Or, as Time's Jay Newton-Smasksasks, will she even reject them if she wins?" Philip Klein at the conservative American Spectator, obviously delighted, has more details: Just wanted to recap some of the fierce back and forth between Bauer and Wolfson on the call, in which mock cordiality barely masked the bitterness between the two camps.
Still, Israel will probably maintain the pretense of cordiality in order to keep the gravy train running.
