"He persuaded a bunch of perfectly understandably cynical musicians that what they went to musical college to study, and the art form that they pursue, is central and worthy and necessary and should be performed at the highest level for the sake of itself," said Patrick Harrild, the London Symphony's principal tuba and chairman of the orchestra, in a telephone interview from Athens.
The Democratic campaign against Bork in 1987, then, wasn't anything new; it merely resumed a dynamic that had been temporarily obscured — one as old as the republic and a perfectly fair, if often cynical, deployment of the Senate's power to advise and consent.
And the judges did not believe him, because they were too good, and perhaps also too conscious of the very foundations of their profession, to admit that an average, "normal" person, neither feeble-minded nor indoctrinated nor cynical, could be perfectly incapable of telling right from wrong.
A small episode, but one that perfectly sums up both Nixon's cynical duplicity, and the futile tragedy of the war.
A more cynical view is that Mr Bush is perfectly suited to be governor of Texas.
Why then should their falling out at the end of a stressful conference be a cynical stunt as opposed to, say, a perfectly logical outcome?
It is unlikely that Mr. Culbertson was unaware of the cynical expression on Clark's face, and he knew perfectly well what other members of he press were thinking of him.
The tracks on their first album, She Like Electric, range from quirky pop and rock songs to adorable raps all with the kind of perfectly simple lyrics that can only come from young, un-cynical minds.
For a cynical, "seen-it-all" time period like the mid-twentieth century -- or now -- it works perfectly.
