There was often sniping from grouchy dads on the opposition touchline who objected to a girl playing rugby.
For years, Catholic bishops had already been sniping from the sidelines at Merkel – a divorced, childless Protestant – saying that many of her policies (on stem cell research, for instance) had no grounding in Christianity.
It was rumoured that sniping about the liberties that Lee Daniels' The Butler took with the truth damaged the awards chances of a movie that had been seen as a hot contender earlier in the year.
He immediately began sniping at Santorum, portraying him as Washington insider, anathema to conservatives.
He also encouraged Ukip supporters to seize the opportunity of the coming EU referendum and make the positive case for leaving, rather than constantly "sniping at the government".
Sniping among Republican competitors for the 2016 presidential nomination heated up late Monday, with Senator Rand Paul slipping on to Fox News ahead of Cruz to poke fun at the fact that Cruz had launched his presidential campaign at an event with required attendance.
But, having spent his political career as an organisational expert rather than as a popular politician, he seems to have few close personal loyalists and he could be destabilised by a new BJP president, as well as by sniping from hardliners.
Raul Alfonsin, a former president now running a poor second as the Alliance's candidate in Buenos Aires province, has spent most of the last two years sniping from the sidelines.
He has pursued it despite sniping from politicians of both the left and the right.
In the authors' model, sniping pushes up bid-ask spreads, as marketmakers must insure themselves against it.
It doesn't take much prompting for activists to start sniping at one another's methods and ideologies.
