This week, a controversy over whether Johnny Manziel, the Texas A&M quarterback and one of the highest-profile athletes in college sports, had been paid a fee to sign autographs last year — which would be a violation of N.C.A.A. rules — transformed into a debate about whether such activity should be allowed.
A small but important tradition of philosophers urge that the debate about platonism should be replaced by, or at least transformed into, a debate about truth-value realism.
By the time Richards finally met face-to-face with her congressional tormenters Tuesday, though, the rhetoric about chopped up " baby body parts," had mostly transformed into a debate about Planned Parenthood's money.
But the moratorium about to take effect has transformed a largely abstract policy debate in Washington into something very tangible for people in Ms. Hayworth's district.
With courage, Labour could turn Osborne's cynical ploy into an opportunity to transform the debate on the issues of welfare, poverty, fairness in our society.
Inside the tube, coal is being converted into natural gas at a rate that could transform the debate about one of the nation's dirtiest fuels.
Though no politician can say it openly, a terrorist attack (or even news of a major plot) could yet transform the debate.
Still, an opportunity exists to transform the debate, to instill national pride in the country's young people by making Japan a protector of human rights and a defender of the disempowered on the global stage, and to take concrete steps so that problems of sexual servitude and rape in war actually do become issues of history.
The release of the sequester details, however, might change the equation and transform the debate from abstract politics into a concrete and eye-opening reality.
A shift by the I.M.F. would transform the debate in Europe.
