“Suddenly you win Iowa, and the knives come out."

All game shows are by definition mercenary, but producers go to great lengths to try to dress up contestants’ cupidity as altruism.

"Just because you didn’t find every Easter egg didn’t mean that it wasn’t planted."

While Mr. Romney, a former business executive and governor of Massachusetts, has reveled in the shift in attention to the economy in the contest, Mr. McCain, of Arizona, has sought to remind voters about the continuing threat of Islamic extremism and his national security credentials.

In a Nakuru neighborhood called Free Area, hundreds of Kikuyu men burned down homes and businesses belonging to Luos, Mr. Odinga’s ethnic group. The Luos who refused to leave were badly beaten, and sometimes worse. According to witnesses, a Kikuyu mob forcibly circumcised one Luo man who later bled to death. Many people in Free Area, which is now almost totally Kikuyu, say it will be difficult to make peace.

The weakness of the Pakistani police and the army response to determined and religiously motivated Taliban fighters was allowing the insurgency to get stronger day by day, he said. “The police are scared,” Mr. Sherpao said. “They don’t want to get involved.”

In the North-West Frontier Province, there was a risk of “total Talibanization,” he said.

Judge Kornmann cautioned the jury that nobody got “a free pass to shoot somebody” because they “went to Iraq or Afghanistan or the moon.”

American officials contend that now, more than ever, he recognizes the need to step up the battle against extremists who are seeking to topple his government. But he also believes that if American forces are discovered operating in Pakistan, the backlash will be more than he can control, especially because the Taliban and Al Qaeda are trying to cast him as a pawn of Washington.

The ease with which Mr. Maheras and Mr. Kim have put themselves back in play is a reminder that for many top Wall Street executives, humiliation and defeat need not result in a professional exile.