Two years of metaphorical purpose

-----------------------
The content on this webpage contains paid/affiliate links. When you click on any of our affiliate link, we/I may get a small compensation at no cost to you. See our affiliate disclosure for more info
-----------------------

Last updated on July 27th, 2017 at 11:55 am

Jeff Alworth—who’d earlier declared “the turkey was a plastic fake”—now performs some comical wriggling:

Whether or not the turkey was fake has little bearing on its purpose as metaphor …

So now the bird is just a metaphor? Better tell that to Kevin Zeese, whose recent column mentioned Alworth’s plastic literary device six times. Republished in the American Chronicle, this howler is added in the very first line of Zeeses’s piece:

Last year President Bush made a surprise visit to the troops in Iraq, put on an Army jacket and served the troops a turkey.

Bush’s visit was in 2003. Meanwhile, fellow turkey-lie repeater Mother Sheehan is upset over alleged media inaccuracies.

Posted by Tim B. on 11/30/2005 at 04:14 PM
    1. I guess Artie Fufkin has moved to the book business

      http://spinaltapfan.com/atozed/TAP00277.HTM

      Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2005 11 30 at 05:46 PM • permalink

 

    1. I ate so much metaphor last week I almost got sick.
      The photo of Cindy Sheehan’s book signing was just a metaphor for the fact that her 15 minutes is up.

      Posted by Latino on 2005 11 30 at 05:52 PM • permalink

 

    1. Lautreamont : the crab of debauch, the octopus of weakness of character, the shark of individual abasement, the boa of absent morals, and the monstrous snail of idiocy!

      Now those are metaphors.

      Posted by rhhardin on 2005 11 30 at 06:05 PM • permalink

 

    1. From the http://www.mediainfo.com article:

      The Washington Post, which carried Evan Vucci’s AP photo, noted that at a protest the same day Sheehan had addressed a crowd of only about 100. “In the morning,” the Post observed, “Sheehan signed copies of her new book, being published this week, for an even smaller crowd,” although it cited bad weather as a possible factor

      {snip}

      But in a statement today, Sheehan accused “right-wing” sites of “spreading a false story that nobody bought my book at Camp Casey on Saturday. That is not true, I sold all 100 copies and got writer’s cramp signing them. Photos were taken of me before the people got in line to have me sign the book. We made $2000 for the peace house.”

      Emphasis is mine……and I find it not at all coincidental that the WaPo reports about 100 people attending Mommy Cindy’s speech, and Mommy Cindy claiming she sold 100 books.

      It’s possible that, all told, a couple hundred people attended the event, assuming every other person bought a book.  But it’s pretty clear that the event was a flop, especially since the book signing took place in a very rural area over a major holiday.

      Talk about poor planning, …..did no one tell Mommy Cindy about Thanksgiving, and that most people have a life?

      Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 11 30 at 06:05 PM • permalink

 

    1. When I state that all anti-war protesters are

      GOD DAMN TRAITORS THAT SHOULD BE INSERTED SLOWLY INTO INDUSTRIAL SIZE PAPER SHREDDERS,

      I mean that only metaphorically.

      Posted by wronwright on 2005 11 30 at 06:14 PM • permalink

 

    1. Have a heart, guys. Alworth’s wife is a former- Christian-former-B’ahai-maybe-current-Buddhist, and that’s the kind of thing that makes your plastic turkeys spin.

      Posted by SoberHT on 2005 11 30 at 06:26 PM • permalink

 

    1. “Whether or not Jeff Alworth’s credibility is fake has little bearing on his status as a braying ass”. Yep, the formula works for me.

      Plastic turkey stuffed with mendacity: mmmmm, good!

      Posted by paco on 2005 11 30 at 06:28 PM • permalink

 

    1. Whether or not the turkey was fake has little bearing on its purpose as metaphor …

      In other words: “We’re trying to trash Chimpy here, not report the facts!! So get over it!”

      Posted by rinardman on 2005 11 30 at 06:29 PM • permalink

 

    1. Mother Sheehan should be thankful they didn’t photoshop crazy she-debbil eyes onto her, as they did on Condoleeza Rice.  And she got writer’s cramp signing all those hundred books?  How hard is it to make an ‘X’, anyway?  And somebody remind me what colour ribbon I’m supposed to wear to honour writer’s cramp incurred while speaking truth to power.

      Posted by cuckoo on 2005 11 30 at 06:35 PM • permalink

 

    1. Pass the dingleberry sauce to mother goosed.

      Posted by duh on 2005 11 30 at 07:18 PM • permalink

 

    1. Jeez…I wish I had an autographed copy of her book.  Looks like they’re going to be worth a lot of money due to their rarity.

      Posted by FDC on 2005 11 30 at 07:42 PM • permalink

 

    1. It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got plastic turkey!

      Posted by ForNow on 2005 11 30 at 07:55 PM • permalink

 

    1. Whether or not the turkey was fake has little bearing on its purpose as metaphor…

      You gotta remember, it’s a plastic metaphor.

      As for St. Ditch, she got writer’s cramp from signing 25 50 100 books?  Please.  I’ve written longer letters than that.

      Posted by RebeccaH on 2005 11 30 at 07:57 PM • permalink

 

    1. The plasticity of his argument is undeniable.

      Posted by blogstrop on 2005 11 30 at 09:01 PM • permalink

 

    1. Turkeyyy, from the moment we saw you
      Lying, aw-aw-aw-aw-all alone
      You gave all the wit that we needed
      So spry, like flubber in a gown
      ‘Cause you’re our turkey of glazed plaaastic
      Dubya—stares from your eyes
      Startling, near and bouncy
      All your metaphor are belong us
      ROOOVE-MAAADE—PLASTIC TURKEYYY!
      DUUUB-YAAA—ATE YOUR EYE-EYE-EYES!
      YOU WERE FLOOOWN IIIN—BY AIR FORCE OOOONE!
      PLASTIC TURKEYYYY!

      Posted by ForNow on 2005 11 30 at 09:09 PM • permalink

 

    1. hmmm… i can see a new entry for Wicki:

      ‘meleagris-polymer-metaphorosis’

      Posted by W i l l i a m on 2005 11 30 at 09:11 PM • permalink

 

    1. #4. Now JeffS, play nice. Cindy is, after all, a moonbat. You can’t expect her to handle the real world.

      If she wishes to put a positive spin on the fact that, as has been noted, her 15 minutes expired yonks ago, then we should allow her to.

      After all, when reality does bite, it’s going to take a huge chunk out of her arse.

      Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2005 11 30 at 09:20 PM • permalink

 

    1. Whether or not the turkey was fake has little bearing on its purpose as metaphor …

      And whether or not you’d know a fact if it bit you on the bum has little bearing on your function as a journalist…

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 11 30 at 09:29 PM • permalink

 

    1. What sort of goose keeps banging on about a turkey? These chickenshit tossers keep trying to duck the real issue, and they’re just bantam-weights. I find their attitude downright poultry.

      Posted by Habib on 2005 11 30 at 09:47 PM • permalink

 

    1. Okay, the plastic turkey is not actually a metaphor.

      But it is similar to one.

      Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2005 11 30 at 10:39 PM • permalink

 

    1. #4. Now JeffS, play nice. Cindy is, after all, a moonbat. You can’t expect her to handle the real world.

      Thing is, Nilknarf, I think Reality did bite her in the arse, and promptly got food poisoning.  So I stepped in.  😉

      Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 11 30 at 10:55 PM • permalink

 

    1. Well, I suppose ‘metaphor’ sounds better than ‘fake-but-accurate.’

      Posted by Achillea on 2005 11 30 at 11:12 PM • permalink

 

    1. #19, Habib,

      That is tear-squeezing funny, especially the last sentence!

      And thanks for making me look up the word “bantam.”

      Posted by reese on 2005 12 01 at 12:17 AM • permalink

 

    1. #18-“And whether or not you’d know a fact if it bit you on the bum has little bearing on your function as a journalist…”

      Sadly, richard, today’s university-educated journalists have been taught the postmodern view that there is no such thing as a “fact” or even “truth”; it’s all relative.  Their lecturers also teach them objectivity is impossible so why bother trying?

      Posted by slammer on 2005 12 01 at 01:07 AM • permalink

 

    1. What sort of goose keeps banging on about a turkey? These chickenshit tossers keep trying to duck the real issue, and they’re just bantam-weights. I find their attitude downright poultry.

      Their gooses will be cooked once someone takes a gander at the situation, and then the chickens will come home to roost. So let’s egg these fowl people on.

      Posted by Dave S. on 2005 12 01 at 01:21 AM • permalink

 

    1. slammer — Perhaps they should be escorted to an intersection and given a little shove to see if they can discover an objective, factual bus…

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 01 at 02:11 AM • permalink

 

    1. “Whether or not the turkey was fake has little bearing on its purpose as metaphor..”

      Oh, I suppose in the way that Latham was a fine metaphor for what’s wrong with Labor … as well as being a Real Turkey?

      I can see a little postmodernist madness coming into this one -soft, very twistable, *theoretical* plastic.

      Posted by Barrie on 2005 12 01 at 02:12 AM • permalink

 

    1. The Afghan ‘winter’ was a metaphor; Stalingrad in Baghdad was a metaphor; 100,000 Iraqi dead is a metaphor; the civil war is a metaphor; the Jenin ‘massacre’ was a metaphor; the Fallujah ‘massacre’ was a metaphor; containing Saddam was a metaphor; ‘I always knew Iraq had no WMD’ was a metaphor; gang rapes at the Superdome were metaphors.

      ‘Never chase a lie. Let it alone, and it will run itself to death’ is a metaphor but their bullshit stinks – literally.

      Posted by Inurbanus on 2005 12 01 at 02:36 AM • permalink

 

    1. #26- I’m gonna borrow that line!

      Posted by slammer on 2005 12 01 at 02:42 AM • permalink

 

    1. #21 JeffS, in that case, I stand suitably chastened. Carry on please, sir.

      Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2005 12 01 at 03:30 AM • permalink

 

    1. OT (but related) – Moveon.org represent “A hundred and fifty thousand American men and women [who] are stuck in Iraq” over Thanksgiving with a photo of British soldiers.  They later try to photoshop their way out of trouble.

      But surely, these are just metaphorical American soldiers? (see how I skilfully tie it all together?)

      Posted by jic on 2005 12 01 at 11:45 AM • permalink

 

    1. Baked but accurate.

      Posted by tachyonshuggy on 2005 12 01 at 01:54 PM • permalink

 

    1. So, let’s see – they dismiss factual errors as metaphors, or use Photoshop to cover them up – and they call themselves the reality-based community?

      Posted by Dave S. on 2005 12 01 at 02:48 PM • permalink

 

    1. Moveon.org represent “A hundred and fifty thousand American men and women [who] are stuck in Iraq” over Thanksgiving with a photo of British soldiers.  They later try to photoshop their way out of trouble.

      But surely, these are just metaphorical American soldiers? (see how I skilfully tie it all together?)

      Hey, why stop there – the Photoshopping itself is a metaphor for the deceptions of the Bush administration!

      Posted by Dave S. on 2005 12 01 at 02:53 PM • permalink

 

    1. Hey, wron, send a memo to Lord Rove about this metaphor thingy! We gotta start using this! It’s sweet!

      Being a dumb neocon right-wing thug, this never occurred to me. Whenever anyone would bust me in an argument, and didn’t want to admit defeat, I’d say, “But still…”

      “It’s a metaphor” is way cooler sounding than “But still…” It effectively means the same thing, but it sounds so much smarter.

      Rich McEnroe, you’re a writer, yes? Work us up something using “synecdoche”. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds even cooler than “metaphor”.

      Posted by Dave S. on 2005 12 01 at 03:01 PM • permalink

 

    1. “Whenever anyone would bust me in an argument, and didn’t want to admit defeat, I’d say, “But still…”

      Should have been “and I didn’t want to admit defeat.”

      Geez. I even previewed it.

      Posted by Dave S. on 2005 12 01 at 04:22 PM • permalink

 

    1. Hmm.  Am I the only one left in this thread? Anyhoo…

      First there was “fake but accurate”, then “it’s a metaphor”, and now, via “Best of the Web”:
      “Some climate experts have said the potential cooling of Europe was paradoxically consistent with global warming caused by the accumulation of heat-trapping ‘greenhouse’ emissions.”—New York Times, Dec. 1

      Posted by Dave S. on 2005 12 01 at 06:46 PM • permalink

 

    1. According to an airport-travelling friend, metaphor means luggage carrousel in modern Greek.

      It serves the same purpose as a literary device.

      Posted by rhhardin on 2005 12 01 at 07:06 PM • permalink

 

  1. the potential cooling of Europe was paradoxically consistent with global warming

    There probably are changes happening to our climate, but what bothers me is that global warming is rapidly becoming unfalsifiable. The weather gets warmer?  It’s proof of global warming, of course.  The weather gets colder?  It’s still proof of global warming.  The weather stays exactly the same?  Then either it’s an irrelevant fluke, or a warning to act before it’s too late.

    Posted by jic on 2005 12 01 at 07:52 PM • permalink