Hagen was being written off as a spent force, after a string of sex scandals and internecine feuding.
That is not to say the unions are a spent force: their strong public-sector membership makes strikes particularly disruptive.
Although the Tamil Tigers are unquestionably on the back foot, it would be dangerous to discount them as a spent force.
He claims that the Muslim Brotherhood is a spent force in Syria.
But the Kennedy family seems to be something of a spent force.
NNP, which drew just 7% of the vote in the 1999 election and was widely considered a spent force, has crept back from the dead.
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After a brave start in the 1980s, Huang Jianxin, another Chinese director, became known for cautious parodies touching mainly local chords and was widely thought of outside China as a spent force.
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Going back as far as the selection conventions, a mix-up with mobile phones led to David McClarty listening to his answer phone and hearing an opponent label him a "spent force".
Russell Kokubon, a state senator, explains that the sustainability task force has spent months holding community meetings and polling residents, in the hope that a shared vision for Hawaii will emerge.
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But, in spite of a lot of hype, Force India has spent its debut season at the back of the grid, unable to move too much further than the back two rows.
The veteran police officer, who was not identified, has about 12 years of experience on the Nassau County police force and previously spent several years as a New York City police officer, Dale said.
"We compete in the land of the giants, " says Jones, 56, a onetime fighter pilot for the Air Force who later spent 15 years coaxing Congress and the Pentagon to fund big-ticket Rockwell International programs like the B-1 bomber.
He did his national service in the Royal Air Force and regards the time he spent working in a hangar as a big influence on his later designs.
Mr Molen and his online colleagues had spent four years building BoB into the dominant force in a game where 200, 000 players battle it out in an online galaxy of spaceships and planets.
As the market for top talent grows more international, so it may force greater tolerance for inequality on countries that have spent half a century trying to root it out.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders has spent two years drawing up a code of practice, which only came into force last month, and it is arguing strongly that this should be given time to prove itself.
He married his high school sweetheart, Peggy Jean Proctor, and spent nearly two decades in the Air Force, including much-decorated service as a fighter pilot in Vietnam.
But in the long term later retirement counters the trend to slowing labour force growth caused by an ageing population, more years spent in college, and a levelling out of women's participation.
Sir Clive, a retired RAF serviceman who spent 30 years with the forces, will be responsible for setting priorities for the force and overseeing its budget.
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