And played with a persuasive mix of intelligence, fatuity, flippancy and earnestness by Mr. Blum, John is a man whose frame of reference is roughly the shape and size of an on-set monitor.
But when the tenor of political expression becomes more important, more persuasive, than integrity, intelligence, logic, sincerity, and accuracy, we're in trouble.
Second, my new book on persuasive communications -- Language Intelligence: Lessons on Persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln and Lady Gaga -- examines effective messaging, political gaffes, and the role of the figures of speech.
But three top national security officials said that the intelligence seemed persuasive, and was backed up by specific and credible sources providing a reasonable basis for warnings.
Six years after graduating from Brooklyn College and serving as a staff lawyer for Thurgood Marshall, Taylor helped make history with his keen intelligence and persuasive powers as a major contributor to the legal brief over desegregation in the south.
This evidence, some officials said, is unlikely to be persuasive to people without an intelligence background, especially if only a half dozen or so pieces out of a hundred are disclosed.
The paper cited what Barlow and many others in the intelligence community understood to be persuasive data showing that the F-16 aircraft previously delivered to Pakistan had been modified to deliver nuclear weapons.
The British government, which will host the annual Group of 8 gathering in Northern Ireland, offered support Friday for Mr. Obama's decision, while the Russian government said it did not find the American intelligence on chemical weapons use persuasive.
Prosecutors credibly linked him to bomb-making materials and presented persuasive testimony that he worked for Libya's intelligence services.
In 1970, he committed suicide, leaving behind him a body of work whose gravity of utterance and persuasive beauty makes him for many the central poetic intelligence of the last 50 years.
