During his long career in the Senate, Mr. Bulger has shown himself adept at consensus-building and has turned detractors into fans, including formidable critics like Gov. William Weld.

Yet it was in Athens where his most formidable contemporary critics could be found.

It is a fair conclusion that the Soviet Union has changed more than its most formidable critic.

He is a formidable critic yet defender of the Catholic Church.

The European Central Bank in Frankfurt, headed by the Frenchman Jean-Claude Trichet who steps down later this year, is Merkel's most trenchant and formidable critic.

Friedman however began to emerge as a formidable critic of Keynesian economics from the mid-1950s, and especially after his 1963 publication of A Monetary History of the United States.

His title takes a playful poke at the formidable literary critic, armed to the teeth with his somber syllabuses and burgeoning jargon.

Thus the Sandinistas agreed to name their most formidable internal critic, Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, to head the reconciliation commission.

Throughout 1980 she had battled against a largely hostile public opinion and formidable critics in her own Cabinet such as Ian Gilmour, Peter Walker, and James Prior.

The emphasis feels misplaced: Rubenfeld defends the seemingly indefensible man and breezes over the formidable critic.