Sentence:  But what a super Herculean task it <WSD>is</WSD> to winnow anything of value from the mud beplastered arguments used so freely , particularly since such common use is made of cliches and stereotypes , in themselves declarations of intellectual bankruptcy . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)