Burman, a Treasury tax official during the Clinton administration, cautioned the Obama administration against using the stimulus as a pretext to make either middle-class tax cuts or its proposed new refundable tax credits permanent.

FORBES: Obama's Tax Choices

Paradoxically, the economic crisis has been a blessing of sorts, providing Chuan with the pretext to make some fast, tough decisions -- such as closing down 56 of 58 suspended finance companies -- which under normal circumstances would have been difficult to do.

CNN: IN FOR A ROUGH RIDE

The broader charge, which was made last weekend in graphic terms by a vengeful Clare Short (the recently departed international development secretary), was one of the most serious it is possible to make: that the prime minister had knowingly led his country to war on a false pretext.

ECONOMIST: Tony Blair and Iraq

In the long run, he must also make political space in Rwanda for the Hutu rebel forces who maraud through eastern Congo and give General Nkunda a pretext for his depredations.

ECONOMIST: Congo