I Never Metaphor I Didn't Like

by Mardy Grothe

  EDWARD R. MURROW

  The battle for the mind of Ronald Reagan

  was like the trench warfare of World War I:

  never have so many fought so hard for such barren terrain.

  PEGGY NOONAN

  This is from What I Saw at the Revolution (1990) by a key Reagan speechwriter. Often misinterpreted as a swipe at Reagan’s intelligence, it was really a comment on his disinterest in and detachment from the details of governance.

  Everybody knows politics is a contact sport.

  BARACK OBAMA

  In The Audacity of Hope (2007), Obama offered another interesting metaphor: “Maybe the trivialization of politics has reached a point of no return, so that most people see it as just one more diversion, a sport, with politicians our paunch-bellied gladiators and those who bother to pay attention just fans on the sidelines. We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side, and if it takes a late hit or cheap shot to beat the other team, so be it, for winning is all that matters. But I don’t think so.”

  The American political system is like fast food—

  mushy, insipid, made out of disgusting parts of

  things, and everybody wants some.

  P. J. O’ROURKE

  Monarchy is the gold filling in a mouth of decay.

  JOHN OSBORNE

  On the same subject, George Orwell concurred, writing, “England resembles a family, a family with the wrong members in control.” Also on the English monarchy, Nancy Mitford observed: “An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off; it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.”

  Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession.

  I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

  RONALD REAGAN, comparing politicians to prostitutes

  Government is like a baby.

  An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end

  and no sense of responsibility at the other.

  RONALD REAGAN

  Like many of Reagan’s lines, this one was borrowed and adapted from someone else. The twentieth-century English clergyman Ronald Knox defined a baby as “A loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

  A government is the only known vessel that leaks from the top.

  JAMES RESTON

  The man who loves other countries as much as his own

  stands on a level with the man

  who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.

  THEODORE ROOSEVELT

  Power is apt to be so insolent and Liberty to be so saucy,

  that they are very seldom upon good terms.

  GEORGE SAVILE (Lord Halifax)

  Freedom of the press is to the machinery of the state

  what the safety valve is to the steam engine.

  ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

  Politics in the middle of things that concern the imagination

  is like a pistol-shot in the middle of a concert.

  STENDHAL

  This observation comes to mind whenever I see an entertainer or celebrity make a political statement at a concert, awards ceremony, or other cultural event.

  Politics is the gizzard of society, full of gut and gravel.

  HENRY DAVID THOREAU

  Criticizing a political satirist for being unfair

  is like criticizing a nose guard for being physical.

  GARRY TRUDEAU, creator of Doonesbury

  Within the first few months I discovered

  that being a president is like riding a tiger.

  A man has to keep on riding or be swallowed.

  HARRY S TRUMAN

  These are the opening words of Truman’s 1956 Memoirs, echoing the words of an ancient Eastern proverb: “Whoever mounts a tiger can never again dismount.” Truman, who often expressed himself in vivid metaphorical ways, also wrote: “The White House is the finest jail in the world.”

  A prince who writes against flattery

  is as strange as a pope who writes against infallibility.

  VOLTAIRE

  The implication is clear—powerful people who say they’re immune from flattery are only fooling themselves. Benjamin Disraeli, who served Queen Victoria for many years, expressed it best: “Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty, you should lay it on with a trowel.”

  Government is not reason and it is not eloquence. It is force!

  Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

  Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

  GEORGE WASHINGTON, attributed

  This popular quotation appears in many quotation anthologies, and even shows up on a Department of Justice web site. It ostensibly comes from Washington’s farewell address, but has never been found in that speech, or anywhere else. It’s now regarded as apocryphal.

  Politics in America is the binding secular religion.

  THEODORE H. WHITE

  Politicians are like diapers.

  They should be changed frequently, and for the same reason.

  ROBIN WILLIAMS

  In the 2006 film Man of the Year, William plays Tom Dobbs, a TV comedian who is persuaded by his fans to run for president. Written and directed by Barry Levinson, the film raises an intriguing question—could a Jon Stewart-like TV star actually become president? It’s not a great film, but it does contain this spectacular simile.

  The Labor Party is like a stage-coach.

  If you rattle along at great speed, everybody inside is too exhilarated

  or too seasick to cause any trouble.

  But if you stop, everybody gets out and argues about where to go next.

  HAROLD WILSON

  The seed of revolution is repression.

  WOODROW WILSON

  The point is that the seed of revolution doesn’t germinate in free societies but in oppressive ones. In The Female Eunuch (1971), Germaine Greer put it this way: “Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.” However, the best line on the subject comes from John Kenneth Galbraith: “All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door.”

  Every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells,

  and when I give a man an office,

  I watch him carefully to see whether he is swelling or growing.

  WOODROW WILSON

  chapter 14

  Sports Is the Toy Department of Life

  I have two distinct memories of my life as an eighth-grade student at St. Nicholas Elementary School in Garrison, North Dakota, in the mid–1950s. The first was memorizing “Paul Revere’s Ride” and then reciting the entire poem without error at a school assembly. I had never read a poem before, much less memorized one, and I still recall the feeling of apprehension when I first committed to the effort, and the ultimate thrill when I finally achieved the goal.

  The second memory involves getting to second base with a certain female classmate in a darkened cloak room just off an empty classroom. I had never advanced that far before, even though it was something I’d dreamed about for quite some time. Out of a sense of decorum, I won’t go into any more detail here. But I will say the experience was quite delightful and exceeded all my expectations.

  In the sport of baseball, getting to first base is the first step players take as they round the bases on the way to their ultimate goal—scoring a run. In everyday life, the expression is used metaphorically to mean getting off to a good start—or to indicate no progress at all, as when people say “I didn’t even make it to first base.” In sexual slang, gradations in petting have long been described by this rounding the bases analogy, with the final step of sexual intercourse most commonly called scoring. Many readers will remember Meat Loaf ’s Paradise by the Dashboard Light, a 1977 rock & roll classic about a couple of teenagers making out inside a parked car, their amorous actions illuminated by the light of the dashboard. The song cleverly blends music and lyrics with the play-by-play
voice of the legendary Phil Rizutto, who at the climax of the evening announces in his trademark way: “Holy cow, I think he’s gonna make it!”

  When people use sports analogies and metaphors, they use concepts from the athletic arena to better understand or describe things in other aspects of life:

  You can’t steal second base while keeping your foot on first.

  This statement, literally true about baseball and metaphorically true about life, advances the notion that life involves risk, and overly cautious people won’t get very far.

  Sports metaphors show up in all aspects of life, but they are especially prevalent in the business world. Every day, in conference rooms all around the world, people talk about hitting the bull’s-eye, going for the Gold, or putting on a full-court press. The boxing world alone has provided such expressions as being on the ropes, going down for the count, throwing in the towel, and delivering a knock-out blow. Managers in almost every industry believe it is their job to pump-up employees with such exhortations as be a good team player or keep your eye on the ball.

  Who among us doesn’t know that we must learn the playbook and stick to the game plan? And then, if we can go with the flow and sprint to the finish, we might be able to win one for the Gipper (that is, as long as we don’t drop the ball or somebody doesn’t move the goalposts).

  Politicians rival business people in their fondness for sports metaphors. An electoral contest is called a race, after all, and in all political races at least one candidate trots out the hackneyed notion that an election is a marathon and not a sprint. During an election year, nightly newscasts routinely talk about contests that are dead heats, and about candidates who are gaining ground, losing momentum, or choking under pressure. Football metaphors are especially common in politics. Theodore Roosevelt, our earliest sports-minded president, once said:

  In life, as in a football game,

  the principle to follow is: hit the line hard.

  A half century later, John F. Kennedy, another sports-oriented president, said:

  Politics is like football.

  If you see daylight, go through the hole.

  Basketball metaphors are also used with frequency by politicians, some quite famously. In his 2004 best-seller Plan of Attack, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward provided a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the events leading to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The book is filled with many tidbits, but none was more interesting than his report of a briefing in the Oval Office on December 21, 2002. Flanking President Bush at that meeting were many high-ranking officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and CIA Director George Tenet. The purpose of the meeting was to review the evidence for the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. After an initial presentation by CIA intelligence experts, Bush was not overwhelmed. He even made a comment that, on the basis of what had been presented so far, Joe Public would not be convinced. Then, referring specifically to the presence of WMDs, he turned to Tenet and asked, “George, how confident are you?” According to Woodward, the CIA director replied:

  Don’t worry, it’s a slam-dunk!

  Tenet, a Georgetown University graduate and a fan of the Georgetown Hoyas basketball team, was using a popular basketball metaphor for a sure thing. His meaning appeared unmistakable—WMDs were almost certainly present in Iraq. As all basketball fans know, however, a player will occasionally soar high above the rim on the way to a glorious slam-dunk—and then blow it. A spectacular miss is a huge embarrassment to ballplayers, and Tenet’s inapt—or maybe inept—metaphor ultimately became a huge embarrassment for the CIA and the Bush administration. In his 2007 memoir, Tenet downplayed the significance of the remark and even gave it a slightly different interpretation, but he never denied making the metaphorical comment that will forever be part of his legacy.

  Just as everyday life is filled with sports metaphors, so the sports world is filled with metaphors from everyday life. Each year, at the beginning of the NCAA basketball tournament, sports analysts wonder who will be this year’s Cinderella team. On the football gridiron, every weekend from September to January there is at least one quarterback who throws A Hail Mary, a long pass thrown into the end zone at the end of regulation time. The underlying analogy is that such passes are desperate prayers, hoping to be answered by the football gods (this notion also shows up in the expression he threw up a prayer, which is used in both football and basketball).

  In the eighteenth century, English writer Jonathan Swift noticed that popular games often had an aggressive, war-like quality. In a 1711 essay he wrote:

  Most sorts of diversion in men, children, and other animals,

  are an imitation of fighting.

  In the essay, Swift planted a sport-as-fighting seed that would later blossom into a full-blown sport-as-war metaphor. And the most famous observation advancing this notion came in a 1945 essay “The Sporting Spirit,” by George Orwell:

  Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play.

  It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness,

  disregard of all rules, and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence.

  In other words, it is war minus the shooting.

  This may be history’s finest observation on the subject, but it’s certainly not the only one. In a 1988 interview, Berkeley sociology professor and sports consultant Harry Edwards picked up on the theme when he said:

  Football is about as close as you can get to war

  and still remain civilized.

  And in a 1960 Sports Illustrated article, Frank Gifford, the star running back for the New York Giants, was quoted as saying:

  Pro football is like nuclear warfare.

  There are no winners, only survivors.

  At first, this looks like hyperbole—and technically, I guess it is. But in this case, we might forgive the exaggeration. Readers of a certain age remember Gifford as one of the great football players of his era. An All-American at USC before being selected by the Giants in 1952, he took the team to five NFL championship games and was league MVP in 1956. In 1960, he suffered one of the most brutal hits in NFL history when Chuck Bednarik of the Philadelphia Eagles blindsided him, knocking him out and causing a serious head injury. The play—legal at the time, but not allowed today—looked like a career-ender, as Gifford announced his retirement a short while later. Incredibly, though, he returned to the game in 1962—this time as a wide receiver—and performed so effectively that the very next year he was selected to the Pro Bowl, his seventh and final appearance.

  When most Americans think of sports analogies, they tend to think of the major sports, like baseball, basketball, football, golf, tennis, and soccer. But almost every sport played by human beings has stimulated—or been described by—metaphorical observations. In a 1987 article on the sport of croquet, a writer for London’s Sunday Times observed:

  The clunk of the ball against mallet is a lovely sound,

  just like ice cubes in a gin and tonic.

  And here’s a metaphorical sampler on some other not-so-common sports:

  Yachting is like standing in a cold shower and tearing up hundred-dollar bills.

  ANONYMOUS

  Squash is boxing with racquets.

  JONAH BARRINGTON, English squash player

  It is like balancing an egg on a spoon while shooting the rapids.

  GRAHAM HILL, on Formula One racing

  Whoever called snooker “chess with balls” was rude, but right.

  CLIVE JAMES

  Fencing is like playing chess with a sword in your hand.

  VALENTINA SIDOROVA, Soviet fencer & 1976 Olympic gold medalist

  Playing polo is like trying to play golf during an earthquake.

  SYLVESTER STALLONE, actor & polo player

  Cricket is baseball on Valium.

  ROBIN WILLIAMS

  Whether you prefer major sports or the more esoteric ones, here’s hoping you enjoy the rest of the metaphorical ob
servations in the remainder of this chapter.

  I never thought home runs were all that exciting.

  I still think the triple is the most exciting thing in baseball.

  To me, a triple is like a guy taking the ball on his one-yard line

  and running ninety-nine yards for a touchdown.

  HENRY “HANK” AARON

  Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

  The hand can’t hit what the eye can’t see.

  MUHAMMAD ALI

  This was Ali’s legendary description of his boxing style, probably inspired by a remark from his cornerman, Drew “Bundini” Brown. From a technical point of view, Ali’s talent as a poet lagged far behind his pugilistic skills. Norman Mailer described it all in a memorable analogy: “For Ali to compose a few words of real poetry would be equal to an intellectual throwing a good punch.”

  Your body is like a bar of soap.

  The more you use it, the more it wears down.

  DICK ALLEN

  In America, it is sport that is the opiate of the masses.

  RUSSELL BAKER

  This line, from a 1967 New York Times article, alters Karl Marx’s famous metaphor about religion being the opiate of the people.

  Playing for Yogi is like playing for your father;

  playing for Billy is like playing for your father-in-law.

  DON BAYLOR

  Here, the popular New York Yankees ballplayer colorfully contrasts two of the club’s best-known managers, Yogi Berra and Billy Martin.

  A catcher and his body are like the outlaw and his horse.

  He’s got to ride that nag till it drops.

  JOHNNY BENCH

  Bodie was out trying to steal second.

  His head was full of larceny, but his feet were honest.

  ARTHUR “BUGS” BAER, on Yankees ballplayer “Ping” Bodie