What was their cherished Declaration of Independence but empty political posturing?
This is not, after all, a minimalist tightrope-walk where a few wrong choices can produce empty posturing instead of precisely understated fiction.
Anyone who tires of politics as all empty posturing should spend time watching things at the local level.
But actually it's empty posturing, just like Greenpeace and arctic drilling.
If we stand here listening to your empty posturing, we won't have time to exit before the Reservoir dumps.
Too much of what has come before takes the form of empty posturing and seething; wide-eyed rants for the benefit of the camera.
I suggest it is empty posturing, which is something many MPs seem to think impresses us.
But the empty posturing and pitiable retreats of the past few days are a sad excuse for the muscular diplomacy that is required.
Either conclusion would mean Sweden's laws were no more than empty political posturing.
But that was all empty posturing, the last people on earth to have wit!