"Not only is it a legitimate exercise in democracy, but I think they came up with some extraordinary ideas."

On both sides there has been a truly incomplete exercise in democracy.

As an exercise in democracy, it should win prizes.

What could we learn if we took the relationship between therapist and patient as an exercise in democracy?

Such an exercise in democracy, he noted, would be "detrimental from the standpoint of the troops."

It has also become an informal exercise in democracy, a new forum for an exchange of ideas between Palestinians and their government.

Municipal elections in 2005 were a first, limited exercise in democracy.

It was a widely tolerated and mostly good-natured exercise in democracy.

When the subject is taxes, every trip to the dump is suddenly an exercise in democracy.

Tiny though these exercises in democracy look to the uninformed citizen, they do a vital job.

This preliminary exercise in democracy failed and was dissolved in 1502.

They threaten to turn what was supposed to be an exercise in democracy into a ratification of ethnic bullying.

There are many, however, who doubt that a big, budget-driven election would be an uplifting exercise in democracy.

"It was the most exhilarating exercise in democracy," he said, giving him hope that a way would be found to curtail traffic.

The present trend, however, is not inevitable, but as an exercise in democracy, it is intolerable.

He said afterwards that shows like his were an exercise in democracy and added: "I happen to believe in the common sense of the audience.

But it was far from clear that the exercise in democracy was what the Bush administration or Israel had intended.

O'Neill ended this exercise in democracy by shouting, "Get your butts down on defense and we'll have a chance to win."

Most of all, it transformed what had been an abstract ideological feud about Senate procedures into a concrete exercise in democracy.

There was some post-caucus fist-fighting to be skirted after another late-night exercise in democracy.

India began voting today in a general election, a process that Indians proudly refer to as the world's biggest exercise in democracy.

Twenty months later, that plucky exercise in democracy has faded in the face of an ascendant China.

Yet, in the end, all the main groups felt they would be heard in an admittedly rough-and-ready exercise in democracy.

Elections in Hong Kong this week were a big disappointment as an exercise in democracy.

Will the country's hopeful electorate see it as an exercise in democracy, or an exercise in American political theater?