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President to send 1,500 more tropes to Iraq
2004.12.07 — Government | Politics | Satire | by Derek Jensen
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How many more tropes? A whole lot. We might have to draft some. |
The White House announced today that the president was authorizing the sending of 1,500 more tropes to Iraq before the end of the year. The move came as no surprise to experts, who have watched as the White House has built up a strong force of euphemism, metaphor, analogy, and rhetoric since the invasion in March 2003 and shows no sign of stopping.
Many insiders have said that more tropes were needed from the very beginning. "While the initial invasion went well," said Charles Peña of the Cato Institute, "It quickly became clear that the military did not have enough imagery to keep the peace."
"[T]he military did not have enough imagery to keep the peace." |
The new tropes will be designed to inspire hope and ease fears, says one former administration official still close the president. "They will liken bombed out buildings to cathedrals of democracy, and— Wait, not cathedrals; mosques of democracy, I guess. Well, that doesn't sound good, but you get the idea. We're talking about a vision thing."
Norman J Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute has published an analysis of the tropes required for the effort. "You've got to have this kind of presence if you want to capture the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq," Ornstein says. "These new tropes will be like the guards at an Abu Ghraib-like facility for capturing, holding, and interrogating those hearts and minds."
"These new tropes will be like the guards at an Abu Ghraib-like facility for capturing, holding, and interrogating those hearts and minds." |
An unnamed source high up in the Defense Department said that the new tropes are likely to come from unexpected places. "Frankly, our usual reserves are tapped out: Greek mythology, The Bible, old John Wayne movies; they're dry as a bone. We've started scouring Walt Whitman for God's sake. We need some inspiration here. It's like we're— It's like— I don't know." He then wandered away, shaking his head sadly.
Administration officials have indeed begun relying much more heavily on euphemism, analogy, and rhetorical questions than it had a year ago. But experts agree that movement into allegory and possibly even soliloquy may be inevitable.
CBS News' Bob Schieffer observes, "The president himself has been shoveling analogies into the Middle East like John Henry shoveling coal." He then added, "Wait, did John Henry shovel coal? No, he was the steel-drivin' man, right? Who am I thinking of?"
Abraham Lincoln sent four score and seven tropes to the South after the Civil War. |
Presidential historian Larry Sabato feels that, when Iraq is compared to other countries we have bombed thruout history, it is clear that the time is right for more tropes. "Abraham Lincoln sent four score and seven tropes to the South after the Civil War. Wilson had his Fourteen Points for the First World War. FDR and Churchill's massive trope strategy practically won World War 2. And in Vietnam.... Well, Johnson failed to fully commit his tropes, and we lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people (well, that and the agent orange). But Reagan came back with a build-up of trope strength in the 80s, and the Soviet Union simply fell apart."
Others warn that George W Bush is no "Great Communicator." Says one unnamed political analyst: "This is a guy who couldn't put a decent metaphor together if you shoved William Shakespeare's quill up his ass and jiggled it."
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