lick and a promise

Dismissed foreign policy and foreign trade with a lick and a promise.

From Time Magazine Archive

Malachy whispers our wash was a lick and a promise, that’s what Mam would say.

From "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt

As a reporter, he was really industrious in matters that met his fancy; but "cast-iron items"—for he hated facts and figures requiring absolute accuracy—got from him only "a lick and a promise."

From Mark Twain by Archibald Henderson

To do anything partially, is to give it a lick and a promise, as in painting or blacking.—To lick, to surpass a rival, or excel him in anything.—Lick of the tar-brush, a seaman.

From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Sir Edward Belcher

There was no "lick and a promise" in Nan Sherwood's housekeeping.

From Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp or, the Old Lumberman's Secret by Annie Roe Carr