In the Guardian interview, Mr Blair dismissed French calls for more time for the inspectors, saying that it would serve no purpose: "It's all very well to say put in more inspections, but it's a pointless exercise".
On Friday, after examining Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain's claims and counterclaims on their tax proposals, Mr. Ponnuru and Mr. Miller wrote, "Maybe it's a pointless exercise: McCain knows that he can wing it and then spin his way out of trouble because voters aren't thinking about issues.
"It was a pointless exercise in humidity-raising," said Clark, now retired.
It may be, as is so often the case, that looking for the logic in Trump's comments is a pointless exercise.
Anyone who saw Robert Altman's underrated film "Prêt-à-Porter" knows that is a pointless exercise.
Shooting badgers is a pointless exercise, a short-term, ineffective, sticky-plaster on the gaping wound that is bovine tuberculosis.
Incidentally, there will be people who think that rubbishing an Express story is a pointless exercise because no-one takes the paper seriously.
Some will complain that this is a pointless exercise in the pursuit of a will-o'-the-wisp - authenticity - that adds little to our understanding of Shakespeare.
Pountney has justified his ruthlessly stylised version (which Banks amiably disowned) with the argument that a 'faithful' adaptation is a pointless exercise, and that his job had simply been to grasp the book's central idea that a disturbed child could become a serial killer.
"The real change came when we started to understand these kids are different to us and projecting our ways of living onto them is a pointless exercise," the executive says.
