"Power and influence has long excused men behaving badly.
Arab governments have long excused the curbs they impose on political freedom by raising the spectre of Islamism.But the political strength of Islamism has grown increasingly plain, not only in Saudi Arabia.
Although the leaders of Al Qaeda have long excused the slaughter of innocents, and many of its attacks have been directed at other Muslims, Suri specifically cautions against harming other Muslims, women and children who may be nonbelievers, and other noncombatants.
Many of the external threats that were long an excuse for dictatorial rule have dissipated.
If you really have to make a long term excuse, make it good, so it has less of a chance to fall apart.
SOME have interpreted the rage-filled stabbing of the Muslim cabdriver on Tuesday as the pinnacle of weeks of hate-mongering from some quarters, as if Park51 had provided a long-awaited excuse to vent more general racist rage.
All of which is a long-winded excuse for the fact that, though I'd always been music mad, I was 30 years old before I ventured so far as a music festival.
Jaymes Everett, 65, a retired electrician from the Bronx who has played Santa in front of Saks Fifth Avenue for three years, said shoppers have been long on excuses and short on money this year.
My long-term excuse for this floral blind spot is that I was raised on chalk, which camellias find uncongenial, and therefore I have no geological connection to them - or indeed any other acid-loving plants.
