All Sarah Palin demonstrated was that after days of intensive coaching, she could memorize talking points and when a question was asked she could ratchet through her memory banks and come up with the paragraph that somewhat, but not always, matched the question.
It's smoking fast off the line, with its five-speed automatic a real joy to hear and feel while ratcheting through the gears.
Then ratchet through the SVT Focus' sharp, six-speed gearbox (sourced from the same supplier that sells shifters to BMW, Getrag ) and get flying.
Aston Martin has outfitted the car with a Formula One-style shifter on the steering column, so the driver can ratchet through the six-speed manual transmission without removing his hands from the wheel.
And, truth be told, we could just as easily list either Audi in the Sporty Handling section, because both cars will ratchet through corners as sharply as the best performance cars, even if they aren't quite as purely sports-oriented, with the slightly softer springs being the main hang-up in this regard.
Everything is ratcheted up through counterpoint: black against white, oblique profile to direct outward glance, funereal darkness to daylight.
As the night ratcheted up through the gears of vacuous tedium, the blazer crew started to filter in.
Wall Street ratcheted its way through a fractious session yesterday before finally closing lower on expectations of further fallout from the continuing credit crisis.
And, yes, you can go off-roading in it too assuming you don't sink in the mud thanks to its dashboard-mounted switch-on-the-fly controls that can ratchet you through 4×2, 4×4 H, 4×4 L, and Auto.
At which point, the fight will have to ratchet up through the gears again.
