And, unexpectedly and gratifyingly, the Bush administration's National Intelligence Estimate of November, which found that "in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program," damaged Western resolve to invoke economy-crippling sanctions, let alone the American threat to use force against Tehran.
"Not one of these people has done anything to create one job," Ms. Pelosi said, invoking the economy to rebut her partisan critics.
Nominalists have often recommended their rejection of abstracta on grounds of ontological economy, invoking the methodological maxim known as Ockham's razor Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem ("Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity").
Enthusiasts for the network economy like to invoke "Metcalfe's law," named after the inventor of the Ethernet.
Yet others think they can defend the old morality and the political dominance of the clergy while, at the same time, opening the economy to the West; they invoke a "Chinese model".
He was able to invoke clever rhetoric to invite capitalist attributes to the economy, call it "socialism with Chinese characteristics," and still reject capitalism in an ode to the country's revolutionary roots.
Certainly Mr. Greenspan's disavowal makes it harder for the Fed to invoke tight labor markets as a reason to slow the economy in anticipation of rising inflation.
But now we have an economy that has left blue-collar workers behind; why invoke social values to explain their plight?
Anniversary campaigns are part of a trend inspired by the economy that could be called comfort marketing, as advertisers invoke misty, water-colored memories of the past to woo consumers into buying products in the present.
Mr. Obama chose not to invoke the Constitution last year, but a second threat to pummel a wounded economy calls for a definitive response.
On one side, advocates of minimal government invoke Smith's invisible hand to argue that we could make the economy more efficient by pushing government aside and letting markets work their magic.
