Buck-and-wing

His abrupt changes of mood and tone disturb even as they dazzle the reader, insisting upon the urgency of Tate's subjects and upon the emotional precariousness of the situations in which he finds them.

With his show-business background, Reagan was unusually deft at this type of verbal buck and wing. At the president's behest, his administration renamed the multiwarhead MX missile — capable of destroying multiple major cities and tens, if not hundreds, of millions of civilians