I don't really buy most his arguments in that piece and he sounds more like a slightly desperate apologist than an insightful commentator.
If all this has a slightly desperate feel to it, it's because both parties are feeling slightly desperate.
The show has had its ups and downs, but it has never lost its slightly desperate edge.
Feeney sat behind Eve's desk, looking bemused and slightly desperate.
When the young man looked uncertain, the boy's voice took on a slightly desperate edge of pleading.
I thought I heard a slightly desperate accent on the word "must."
"I'm wasting my time," he muttered in a dazed, slightly desperate voice.
Looking at 400 pictures of one city may give you the slightly desperate sense that you should just go outdoors and see the place itself.
Whether the Chicago Bulls are more dangerous or slightly desperate will not be known for a while.
But "Mockingbird" begins on a facile, slightly desperate note.