most ill-starred

The court order throws another wrench into a census that already was the most ill-starred and politically freighted tally since at least 1920, when a Republican-dominated Congress refused outright to accept a population count that would have shifted political power to Democratic cities.

“Passengers were crushed by descending boats. Swimmers were struck by chairs, boxes, potted plants, and other debris falling from the decks high above. And then there were those most ill-starred of passengers, who had put on their life preservers incorrectly and found themselves floating with their heads submerged, legs up, as in some devil’s comedy.”

A Spock-like economic wonk used to the civilized stone halls of the New York Federal Reserve bank, Geithner was dragged in 2009 into one of the most ill-starred tenures of any modern US treasury Secretary.

The Steptoe expedition was the most ill-starred event in the whole history of the North-west, unless we except that of the destruction of the Tonquin.

The Wilson campaign will probably be remembered as one of the most ill-starred presidential bids in history.