American political life would be thinner gruel without him.

It was as if its skin had been painted with some sort of thin fluorescent gruel.

But the other revelations in his long-awaited book are rather thin gruel.

And hope is thin gruel to a country where the natural response to the question, "How are you?"

After a morning of such thin gruel, Malenfant retreated to his hotel room.

Ethnic identity, he said, "is pretty thin gruel compared to race."

But that doesn't mean a spartan diet of thin gruel.

But without the visuals of live performance, it's all pretty thin gruel.

Just a little thin gruel, if you like, but something to set me in train: I have a most important letter to write.

The piece is startling as a work of art but from the religious standpoint it makes for pretty thin gruel.