Watching the Republicans chew at their own entrails this year as a wave supposedly continues to build that will supposedly sweep them back to power, I find myself wanting to reach to mythology and fable for apt comparisons.
It's like if Cerberus had one or more of its heads go crazy and start attacking the other heads.
The scene in the Brave Little Tailor where the tailor pelts two sleeping giants with stones, provoking a fight in which they kill each other also jumps to mind.
But, as I was researching for this piece, I found a hilariously appropriate piece of projective analysis at Townhall that I felt really summed it up nicely.
To set the stage: there is an article dated August 17, 2010 at Townhall entitled, Infighting Threatens to Rip Dems Apart, in which Donald Lambro (who is the chief political correspondent for The Washington Times and who, based upon his profile picture, looks like a young William F. Buckley, Jr., though he writes like a typical WT chucklehead)argues:
Democrats have a long history of fighting among themselves, but the spectacle of the White House attacking its liberal base and party leaders distancing themselves from their president in the midst of a critical midterm election is a new low even for them.
Democratic candidates from Texas to Indiana do not want to be seen campaigning with President Obama. His chief spokesman says the president's critics in the party's left wing ought to be drug tested because of their extremist views on health care and defense. And Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid rejects Obama's insensitive remarks supporting the right to build a mosque near Ground Zero.
Individually, each of these issues reflect a party at war with itself. Collectively, they suggest a dysfunctional party in turmoil that raises profound questions about its inability to govern and a troubling disconnection from mainstream America.
In light of what's happening in today's GOP, that's pretty funny all by itself. But then I found this gem in the comments section:
The Dems at war within? Awwwww.......couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of back stabbing, globalist Socialists seeking only personal power now could it? When the democrat Party started allowing avowed Socialists and Progressives to wrap the DNC banner around themselves they did so knowing the potential conflict. So now they've run up on a reef named Obama and the diverse Party membership is in near mutiny about how to extricate themselves without sinking the boat.
One Party faction wants to set the Captain adrift in a skiff, another bunch wants him to walk the plank and a third wants to promote him to Admiral. Tough choices, boys. You decided to Ride the Tiger to national power but you forgot the Tiger has teeth.
I'm sure I've posted this here before but it's very fitting:
"There was a young lady of Niger
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside,
And the smile on the face of the tiger."
Wm Cosmo Monkhouse 1840-1901
Tough to tell at this point who the "smiler" is and who the "smilee" is, but the Dems are eating themselves up. Want fries with that?
Notice the penultimate sentence there, and put aside the fact that it doesn't make sense (I assume that "smiler" means "tiger" and "smilee" refers to the young lady). It doesn't seem to have occurred to the commenter that maybe the reason it was hard to identify who within the Democratic alliance plays which role within the limerick could be that the poem is not really apposite to the Democratic situation.
On the other hand, if you want to talk about elephants being eaten by tigers, I don't have it's pretty easy to pick out the "tigers" and the "elephants" of the Republican party.
So here's a bit of pictorial instruction:
Elephant:
Tiger:
(Okay, this first example is not the best because it looks more like a crazy tiger eating a slightly less crazy and more electable tiger. But it gets better below.)
Elephant:
Tiger:
Elephant:(Please do not play this video if you do not want to see graphic footage of elephant (figuratively) being eaten by tiger!)
Tiger:
The Republicans aren't riding a wave. They're riding a tiger. Let's see who's smiling on November 3rd.
Crossposted at The People's View.