"Ultimately it is persuasion that allows us to do what we do," says Mr Rudnick.
According to the Telegraph, Mr Johnson describes the rhetoric of Hitler and the all-consuming powers of persuasion that drove a country into war.
This reality doesn't make the New Testament narratives historically dispositive by any stretch: They are, after all, works of religious persuasion that make extraordinary claims about their subject.
Critics contend that the unstated purpose of such renditions is to subject the suspects to aggressive methods of persuasion that are illegal in America including torture.
That's why, the argument goes, military interrogators must be allowed to question suspects at length, using strategies of persuasion that might not win applause from defense lawyers.
If you're of a certain Christian persuasion that believes the United States is God's providential actor on earth, crowned as history's savour, the call to fall isn't insensible.
That could lead to a series of votes by the delegates followed by horse-trading and efforts at persuasion that would make the outcome difficult to predict — and profitable for television to cover.
Around 70% of Britons say they do not want to join the euro.Even for a man with Mr Blair's considerable powers of persuasion, that is a big number to shift.
But it is also because the tough work of persuasion that is needed to make economic reform work can ultimately be done only by national politicians who need to convince their own voters.
"It's the volatility of a lively democratic environment," said Farideh Farhi, a political scientist and an author, "and by that I mean the conversation and the politics of persuasion that is taking place among the people.
Gillespie's previous stance was that he would need "persuasion" to leave Yorkshire, persuasion that must have come from Andrew Strauss.
