His motive here — to investigate desire without a blink or a blush — is laudable, but the look of it suggests that he rushed the project through, leaving the script to founder at the level of a student film.
Yes, the point that rivalry can be good for cities and states looks laudable on the surface.
"Protecting Christians would be a laudable goal, but if you look at the rest of the bill, that doesn't seem to be what the intent of this legislation is completely," said Melanie Nezer, vice president for policy and advocacy, at HIAS, a Jewish nonprofit that protects refugees.
The vision is laudable but, as well as looking outward, Edinburgh's leaders would do well to draw inspiration from its own history: from the harmonious plans of its architects, the wisdom of its political philosophers, and the tireless energy of its administrators who, out of disorder and poverty, constructed one of the world's great cities.
Sustainable fashion is laudable, but if it doesn't look good, no one's going to buy it.
Laudable as all this is, it looks like a quick fix, rather than a much-needed overhaul of a culture of dependence, waste and secrecy.
The president's desire to look forward rather than back is laudable, but it is leaving him seriously exposed.
A spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner said that streamlining the government was a laudable goal and that Republicans would take a look at the plan.
Without finance, the sustainable development goals agreed by UN member states in September are just laudable normative statements of what the world should look like, lacking the means to make it that way.
In a city abundant with trained waiters and cooks looking for work, the course "is laudable, and adds to the students' value, but so would work experience at Gramercy Tavern," said Clark Wolf, a restaurant consultant based in New York.
