grudging

Things were going fair to middling with his candidacy until Biden’s catastrophic, catatonic debate performance in June, which caused a major Democratic freak-out and resulted in his grudging departure from the ticket and endorsement of Harris.

But the cheers for the president could be as much a sign of gratitude for his grudging decision to step aside as it was a tribute to a storied political career that began in 1972 when he was first elected to Congress at the age of 29.

His Daily News relentlessly covered the issues around the police beating of Rodney King and the Rampart police corruption scandal, winning sometimes grudging admiration from The Times.

Belousov’s appointment is “a grudging recognition from the Kremlin” that it has to pay attention to these problems, said Gould-Davies.

But her exchanges with the leaders of Harvard and Penn attracted enormous attention and won some rare plaudits from grudging liberals.