Meaty Metaphors

Tim Geithner! Why Are Rich People So Cheap?
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: January 13, 2009

It's one of those psychological effects that when you are deprived of something, your thoughts tend to fixate on that item. Let's do a textual analysis of today's Maureen Dowd column and see if we can find any clues to her New Year's resolutions.

With Chelsea sitting protectively behind in a plum dress and glam ’40s hairdo — Bill was watching on TV with his mother-in-law — Hillary showed the reasons she could be a star at state and queen of Obama’s hot nerds.

Getting warm? Let's try this passage:

She was on top of all the issues, no matter how obscure. She batted around our “stale” arctic policy — who knew? — with Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, who doesn’t seem to realize we’re sick of Alaska.

She was up to date on the inevitable Law of the Sea Treaty.

What was a suspicion becomes a tortured metaphor:

She ladled up the broth of flattery expected in the Senate with a chef’s finesse. Even after Senator Dick Lugar, the ranking Republican on the panel that was questioning her, tut-tutted that her links to Bill Clinton’s foundation carry the “risk” of foreign governments “and entities” trying to curry favor with Madam Secretary by donating money to her husband, she deftly buttered up Lugar.

By now, even I am hungry. We even get some old-timey foodie references.

After enduring endless pompous lecturing from John Kerry on what she should read and think — a thinly veiled attempt to show the world that he would have made a better secretary of state, and indeed, thinks he was promised it by Obama — Hillary slathered on the oleo.

And after dinner, some digestive release is called for.

After his windy discourse on how scientists had “revised the levels of supportable greenhouse gas emissions from 550 parts per million to 450 to now 350,” Hillary replied: “You are eloquent in describing it, and you’ve been a leader in trying to sound the alarm on it for many years.”

We have waded deep into Mike Myers flatulence joke territory here. But it's not all food and fart jokes. Having exhausted the culinary attacks, she repurposes some old metaphors. It used to be The Nepotism Tango, but Hillary has switched partners and it's now Obama she is doing the forbidden dance with.

Obama and Hillary continue to be engaged in an intense tango.

And her image of Obama as Herculean hero is as sharp as ever.

Cleaning out the Augean stables was nothing compared to this task, with Obama trying to bend Hillary and Bill to his will, while they try to bend him to theirs.

And to get the obvious out of the way, the titular reference to Tim Geithner was a complete red herring. The point of the column was to dish up leftovers about Hillary. Because as long as there is a Clinton in the kitchen, Maureen will never go hungry for material.

The Scorpion's Nature

"But some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable! It is the one unforgivable thing, in my opinion, and the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty."

"I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth."

-Blanche DuBois, A Streetcar Named Desire

Butterflies Aren’t Free
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: May 7, 2008

I’d been worried about Maureen Dowd. The stress of the campaign seems to have interrupted her Movies With Maureen® marathon, but returning to form, we have Vivien Leigh night. Maureen compares Hillary to Vivien Leigh with her tenacity to do anything to get a role.

In his memoir, the legendary Elia Kazan wrote about directing Vivien Leigh in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” While he did not think that Leigh was a great natural actress, he was impressed that she would crawl through glass to get the role right.

Hillary Clinton may not be a great natural politician, but traveling across the country on her own Bus Named Desire, she has crawled through glass to get the role right.

But Blanche DuBois from A Steetcar Named Desire just doesn’t seem Clintonesque enough to Dowd, so she goes back to the Vivien Leigh costume drama she has used on more than one occasion, Gone With The Wind:

Hillary is less Blanche than Scarlett. “Heaven help the Yankees if they capture you,” Rhett told the willful belle at the start of her rugged odyssey.

And heaven help the Democrats as they try to shake off Hillary. On top of her inane vows to obliterate Iran, OPEC and the summer gas tax, she plans “a nuclear option” during her Shermanesque march to Denver.

And just to prove that she can, Maureen comes up with yet another baffling metaphor. While the column title evokes the Goldie Hawn romantic comedy, Butterflies Are Free, the real source for the column title is this inane comparison:

The Democratic race has been a scorpion and a butterfly in a bottle. Hillary tore Barry’s wings off, and so psyched him out with her silly goading — “Enough about the speeches and the big rallies!” she cried — that he gave up his magical trump cards.

The more famous tale of a scorpion is about the frog and a scorpion crossing a river (as told here by Luis Aguilar Leon):

A scorpion asks a frog for help crossing a river. Intimidated by the scorpion's prominent stinger, the frog demurs.

``Don't be scared,'' the scorpion says. ``If something happens to you, I'll drown.''

Moved by this logic, the frog puts the scorpion on his back and wades into the river.

Half way across, the scorpion stings the frog.

The dying frog croaks, ``How could you -- you know that you'll drown?''

``It's my nature,'' gasps the sinking scorpion.

In this better example, Clinton is the scorpion that will sting Obama and force them both to drown just because that is what she does.

The more familiar Dowd themes get touched on just to keep them current. We have a reference to Obama refusing food:

Even though people at diners kept trying to fatten up Obama — he drew the line at gravy — he looked increasingly diaphanous, like anti-matter to Hillary’s matter.

Which also included the Crossword Clue Or The Week® for 'diaphanous' which is evocative of butterflies and gauzy flightiness. While not completely efeminizing Barack, it will do.

Maureen Dowd is no darling of Media Matters, the left wing Truth Squad and enforcer of political correctness. They have been on her for daring to call Clinton a vampire (here’s my take on that column and a typically rabid Media Matters over-reaction). She seems to be daring them to come after her for quoting an Indiana voter that thinks Barack is Muslim.

In a restaurant in Greenwood on Tuesday, Obama approached an older white guy who waved him off, muttering afterwards to a reporter: “I can’t stand him. He’s a Muslim. He’s not even pro-American as far as I’m concerned.”

Dowd does nothing to dispel the obvious misimpression this voter has. And really that sort of mistake is beyond correction. It is a Big Lie spread among rabid right-wingers that has taken hold in the zeitgeist. I’m just waiting for the accusations that Dowd is a foot soldier and dupe for the McCain campaign for observing that the meme is out there. Hand-wringing liberal outrage in four, three, two, wait for it…

Knocking Dowd for pointing out the weaknesses of Democratic candidates is a fool's game. It's her nature to do so, no matter who ends up drowning. Just like the scorpion.

Crashing Into The Bushes

Soft Shoe in Hard Times
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 16, 2008

Maureen Dowd, after four months of nearly exclusive focus on the Clinton campaign, raises her head like a groundhog that has overslept and notices that the economy has gone into the dumper. Not that she claims you would know by listening to George W. Bush:

The dollar’s crumpling, the recession’s thundering, the Dow’s bungee-jumping and the world’s disapproving, yet George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly, tap dancing and singing in a one-man review called “The Most Happy Fella.”

Gene Kelly is the low-hanging fruit in this pop culture parade (the widow Kelly has already protested any insinuation that W could possibly hold a candle to Gene’s footwork), but The Most Happy Fella is the more intriguing call-out. This is an obscure Frank Loesser musical comedy most notable for its operatic musical structure.

The plot about a shlubby guy hitting on a waitress has little to do with the Bush administration, but back in January, Patt Morrison at the Huffington Post called Dick Cheney the “Most Happy Fella”. Who knew so many pundits writing about the Dubya crew were showtune fans?

Whether or not Dowd was inspired by Morrison or not is not for me to figure out, but another passage sounded very familiar. It seems that Maureen reads a lot of Dowd. Take this comment in the Sunday column:

Boy George crashed the family station wagon into the globe and now the global economy.

Boy George was a Rude Name® in Dowd's mind since before 9/11. But W has wrecked the family station wagon before. That car crash metaphor sounds just like the one she used in her December 5, 2007 column (DowdReported here):

When W.’s history is written, he will be seen as the rebellious teenager crashing the family station wagon into his father’s three most cherished spots — diplomacy, intelligence and the Gulf.

And before that on July 11, 2007 in a column called “History As An Alibi”:

Watching the warring tribes in Iraq grow more violent has caused the beginning of a reconciliation among the warring tribes in Washington, as they realize they have to get the car keys away from the careening president who has crashed into the globe.

That’s a whole lot of crashing going on. Mostly of metaphors into each other.

Let The Big Dog Eat

Two Against One
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: January 23, 2008

She talked a lot about her 12-year-old daughter, Chelsea, her interest in educational programs and her desire to be "a voice for children" in the White House. Two for the Price of One.

"Candidate's Wife; Hillary Clinton as Aspiring First Lady:
Role Model, or a 'Hall Monitor' Type?"
by Maureen Dowd May 18, 1992

The Clintons have always been a tag-team and whether they are heroes or villains depends on your opinion of them. For the upcoming South Carolina primary, Bill Clinton has been unleashed and is out there banging Obama in the back in the head with a folding chair at every opportunity.

The Clintons — or “the 2-headed monster,” as the The New York Post dubbed the tag team that clawed out wins in New Hampshire and Nevada — always go where they need to go, no matter the collateral damage. Even if the damage is to themselves and their party.

Maureen Dowd unleashes the sports metaphors, mixing and mashing at random.

In the Myrtle Beach debate Monday night, Obama was fed up with being double-teamed by the Clintons.

It’s odd that the first woman with a shot at becoming president is so openly dependent on her husband to drag her over the finish line.

Dowd has also become very fond using “Big Dog” as short hand for Bill Clinton.

The Big Dog relished playing the candidate again, wearing a Technicolor orange tie and sweeping across the state with the mute Chelsea.

Left unsaid is what the canine epithet for Hillary would be, perhaps a cartoon hero who always wins anyways.

Keep in mind, in the last two primaries, we ran as an underdog.”

And finally we mix both sports and pets for the final lap:

And if he has anything to say about it, and he will, they’ll be fighting till the last dog dies.

Bill Clinton, like any good pit bull, gets the most vicious when everything is on the line.

Obambi In The Crosshairs

In my post about Sunday’s column, I noticed that Maureen Dowd called Barack Obama “Obambi” for the umpteenth time. The first instance was back on December 13, 2006 in a column blatantly called Will Hillzilla crush Obambi? The title echoes the classic cartoon parody "Bambi Meets Godzilla" by Marv Newland which can be seen here. Hint: It doesn't end well for Bambi.

But unlike her impertinent challenger, Hillary will have to do a lot of fancy dancing to explain her opinions about the Iraq war. And we know that she’s not a good dancer.

Built on a cult of personality, her campaign will be ruthless in stomping on Obambi, as a Chicago columnist referred to the idealistic pol who was too naïve to steer clear of a sleazy fund-raiser who wanted to buy his favor with a sweetheart real estate deal.

This sweetheart deal is allegedly the same scandal that Robert Novak has been alluding to. And while Dowd credits a "Chicago columnist" (actually John Kass of the Tribune) for inventing the "Obambi" saying, the blogosphere likes to blame Maureen.

On February 21st of this year, Dowd goes all Oscar metaphor with Obama’s Big Screen Test.

Who can pay attention to the Oscar battle between “The Queen” and “Dreamgirls” when you’ve got a political battle between a Queen and a Dreamboy?

Can you guess who is who? But then she goes right back to the Disney classic.

Did Mr. Spielberg get in trouble with the Clintons for helping Senator Obama? “Yes,” Mr. Geffen replies, slyly. Can Obambi stand up to Clinton Inc.? “I hope so,” he says, “because that machine is going to be very unpleasant and unattractive and effective.”

Her boxing metaphor (which will serve her well in the next several months), used in Where's His Right Hook? also goes back to the monster versus woodland creature image.

The Democrats lost the last two excruciatingly close elections because Al Gore and John Kerry did not fight fiercely and cleverly enough.

After David Geffen made critical comments about Hillary, she seized the chance to play Godzilla stomping on Obambi.

Ever the pop culture maven, In Can He Unleash the Force? Dowd invokes comic book heroes to get Barack to man-up.

In mythic tales from “Superman” to “Star Wars” to “Spider-Man,” there comes a moment when the young superhero has to learn to harness his powers. That’s the challenge Barack Obama faces now.

But often he reverts to Obambi, tentative about commanding the stage and consistently channeling the excitement he engenders.

Clearly Maureen hasn’t been watching her movies to the end. In Bambi, our young buck grows some antlers and becomes a powerful stag that goes on to lead the herd.

Fruitbat In A Dinner Jacket

‘Fruitbat’ at Bat
by MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 26, 2007

“Casey At The Bat” is a famous poem about a small-town baseball hero that endures humiliation when he strikes out in a clutch situation. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was called a fruitbat by Greg Gutfeld of Fox News upon the event of his delivering a speech at Columbia University.

And on top of all that, we help build up the self-serving doofus Iranian president, a frontman with a Ph.D. in traffic management, into the sort of larger-than-life demon that the real powers in Iran — the mullahs — can love.

According to Wikipedia, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s doctorate is in transportation engineering and planning, a subdivision of civil engineering. His undergraduate entrance exam scores ranked him 132 out of 40,000.

But while challenging the policies and ideology of the Evil Empire, Ronald Reagan understood he had to engage Mikhail Gorbachev, not ignore or insult him.

Reagan was able to help the Soviet Union — and world communism — to fall apart. All W. has managed to do is destroy the country he wanted to turn into a democracy and make Iran more powerful than it was before.

In Iranian eyes, the U.S. has behaved in a way that continually diminishes their country” — from U.S. involvement in the 1953 coup that reinstated the Shah to W.’s branding them as part of the “axis of evil.”

Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire” in a speech on March 3, 1983. The Soviet Union dissolved amid political and economic chaos in 1991. Dubya described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as members of the “Axis of Evil” in his State of The Union speech on January 29, 2002. The United States invaded and defeated Iraq in March of 2003. North Korea tested a nuclear device in 2006. Iran, well, that's the point.

Wouldn’t sticks and carrots — cultural fluency, smart psychology and Reaganesque dialogue — be a better way to bring the Iranians around than sticks and stones?

“Carrot and stick” is a frequently debated metaphor that either means a combination of rewards and punishments is the best combination of motivations or it implies that the hope for a reward, no matter how illusory is an effective incentive.

Sticks and stones may break my bones / But words will never hurt me is a common schoolyard rebuttal to verbal insults. Maybe stones and carrots like in the stone soup fable would be the best solution.

The president’s irrelevant U.N. speech was a bad combo with the schoolyard name-calling of Lee Bollinger.

Complete the following the analogy:

Kettle:pot::Lee Bollinger:_________

(Hint.)