The atmosphere in Congress was tense before Thanksgiving, he said, adding that he feels "automakers have become the whipping boy" for the industry bailout.

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He clearly cares deeply about the title character (Vincent Gallo), a writer living in Buenos Aires, who had been the darling, and is now the whipping boy, of a dominant local critic.

NEWYORKER: Tetro

The current fashionable whipping boy is, of course, the Suhartos.

CNN: CONTEMPLATING THE DYNASTY BEYOND 2000

Another whipping-boy is the European Union (EU).

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Grubman is Eliot Spitzer's favorite whipping boy--and the rest of wall street, which plied many of the same tricks, seems happy to let him stay that way.

FORBES: The Scapegoat

As with so much about Twitter, which has gone from media darling to whipping boy at warp speed, the promise still outweighs the reality.

FORBES: Twitter: Save that search