What, you never heard of "devil's advocate"?
It could be.
You're right about fair usage, except that's a custom and not the law. We all live by it, but if someone wants to challenge fair usage, they can. They can also count on the opposition of the libraries to their challenge.
We would, of course, prefer not to see an edit job like this:
"President Bush and Vice President Cheney more than hold their own in the dog eat dog world of partisan politics, whose battles sometimes start before breakfast."
"President Bush and Vice President Cheney . . . eat dog. . . before breakfast."