I have avoided politics so far, but we're officially in an "-ember" month and I'm going to have to throw something out there every now and then. And I just have to comment on this whole muddle of metaphor that's been going on.
Obama dispatched the silly "pig-with-lipstick" business with exemplary cool last night on Letterman, explaining that it is (hello!) simply an expression. "It connotes the idea that if you have a bad idea, in this case I was talking about John McCain’s economic plans, that just calling them change, calling it something different, doesn’t make it better - hence, lipstick on a pig is still a pig."
There. Can we all relax now? But then we all knew all that, didn't we? And yet there have been such exciting fireworks displays of affront and outrage! It was quite the performance. They should have sold tickets.
However, my favorite part was Obama's postscript to the whole thing:
"Keep in mind that, technically, had I meant it that way, she would have been the lipstick, you see? Yeah, the failed policies of John McCain would be the pig. Now, I mean, you know, just following the logic of this illogical situation."
Ha! That's terrific.
I bet my U.M. professor of the first class I took there, "Metaphor and Meaning," is having a field day with this.
