Obama and the allies are gambling that, after a decade or so of growing prosperity, Iran's influence in the region will become less malign.
But I do not think Palin intended her remark simply as a cheap applause line; after all, at that moment she was not pandering from a Tea Party stage but speaking to an audience of NPR listeners, who I'm pretty sure have a less malign view of the press.
By virtually all of the accounts I've heard, there is no single action the international community could insist upon that would have a greater impact on public opinion in Taliban country than the removal of A.W.K. and the replacement of his reign by a visibly more inclusive and less malign political economy.
I responded that there was nothing more natural — or less malign — than trying to talk in a new way if the old way has led to misinterpretation or misjudgment.
It's possible to imagine less malign scenarios.
Where Suskind sees a president "systematically undermined or hedged" by aides more loyal to Wall Street than to their elected boss, Scheiber describes a less malign White House team weighing solutions that differ in subtle degree, not basic ideology.
Hippocrates mentioned cholera as a common post-childhood disease, but given that he thought it might be brought on by eating goat's meat he was probably referring to a less malign form of diarrhea.
Or is there some chance that ways can be found for dealing with him that will make his presidency less malign and less destructive than we fear?
To "wear white" means to be mindful of mudslinging — and the more you know someone, the less likely you are to malign them.
A number of significant players have returned from injury — Osi Umenyiora, Justin Tuck, Ahmad Bradshaw — and the defense, once maligned, is now slightly less maligned, and boasts one of the best pass-rushing brigades in football.
