And his secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, is not a dominant figure in the tradition of John Foster Dulles or Henry Kissinger.

ECONOMIST: Foreign policy

The Fed chairman is usually a dominant figure.

ECONOMIST: The Federal Reserve

But Mr. Sonderling, a 53-year-old financial adviser, became a celebrity of sorts for allegedly being the dominant figure in a "bondage" relationship whose details were disclosed this week by the New York Post, a newspaper owned by News Corp.

WSJ: Sex Scandal Damages Wall Street's Cleaner Image

The defence say Miss Pearson and her mother suffered from a syndrome called folie a deux which meant the older woman was the dominant figure in the relationship and Miss Pearson therefore had a reduced capacity to appreciate the risk to her mother's health or the conditions they lived in.

BBC: Angela Pearson had 'no idea' mother would die

But in his weak result, many saw the likelihood of a harder-line figure from the dominant Malay UMNO party emerging to displace him.

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There are those who insist that Hitler is not the century's dominant figure because he was simply the latest in a long line of murderous figures, stretching back to before Genghis Khan.

CNN: The necessary evil?

But she was not merely the dominant political personality of her generation - she was a transcendent cultural figure who inspired more songs, books, plays and films than any other British leader since Oliver Cromwell.

BBC: Viewpoint: What if Margaret Thatcher had never been?

Instead of watching in awe as a simply dominant team rolled over their opponents and enjoying the ride, investors these days are too busy trying to figure out when their beloved Cubbies are going to collapse again.

FORBES: This Is A Bull Market - Enjoy It