The Problem with Metaphors

In a radio address back in the lazy hazy days of August, a couple of days before Hurricane Katrina seemed to wipe such hopeful pipe dreams away, George bush told the nation:

Like our own nation's founders over two centuries ago, the Iraqis are grappling with difficult issues, such as the role of the federal government.

Soon after Billmon suggested that if one wanted to make that analogy then one might actually wan to look at the differing circumstances, the occupation being just one issue.

The men who met in Philadelpha in the summer of 1787 were the winners of a protracted revolutionary struggle for national independence -- not the leaders of a collection of squabbling ethnic and religious factions, many of whom spent years in exile and then rode back into their native land on the backs of foreign tanks. The framers of the U.S. constitution expelled an occupying army. The founders of the New Iraq are guarded by one.

And now Retired Marine General Joseph Hoar turns the metaphor on its head:

And the answer was that Ho Chi Minh won as long as he didn’t lose, and these guys are in the same category. They are on an entirely different track than we are. This is the George Washington plan: don’t get decisively engaged, hang in there, sooner or later events are going to change and the foreign invaders are going to lose. (Think Progess)