The government record since 1987 was poor the campaign was the object of media derision and the recession did untold damage to the party's reputation for economic competence.
In the weeks following the announcement, Sakharov's name became the object of obsessive derision in the Soviet Union on television, in newspapers, in statements by "representatives of the working class" and in all other outlets through which the regime made known the unanimous "will of the people".
"The flag is coming down today," they sang in an updated lyric to the tune of "We Shall Overcome," on a sunny anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Young people who had never attended a protest strode next to an older generation that knew the drill, waving signs, stomping feet and mock-grimacing at the object of their derision on the dome.
But the mayor seemed energized by the sight of the object of his derision, and there was a new force in his steps as he finished the last few blocks of his protest march and stood under the dome to speak to a crowd that had grown to nearly 2,000, about two-thirds of it white.
Elsewhere, their images have become tools of political resistance, but here the detainees are in a sense twice violated, first as objects of the photographers' derision, then as objects of the audience's detached contemplation.
The clerks writing the rolls also used them as places to deride officials of the government, such as William Longchamp, who was the object of derision in the 1194 Pipe roll.
The main object of her derision is the bright and friendless Elizabeth Moon, whose single mother runs a kennel out of their home.
And that Susan Boyle's appearance on the show would still be on YouTube, but as an object of derision and ridicule.
The object of our derision would soon have the nuclear codes.
That Paltrow, whose role in Iron Man triumphantly showcases her victory over toxins, should continue to be the object of international derision may mean that the public's problem is not so much her methods as being life-coached by an absurdly rich, self-flagellating Martian with the social awareness of a crocodile.
