Politics and Metaphor

The left-wing blog Think Progress (how's that for an oxymoron?), ran a provocative piece this morning excoriating Sarah Palin for calling her 'death panel' reference earlier this year a metaphor for low quality service, and bureaucratic control over health care.

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I have been fairly quiet in discussing anything at all related to Alaska's former Governor. I know as much about her as I know about the Frontier State itself. 'Going Rogue' was a Christmas present, however, so I hope to post some reactions soon. Suffice it to say, the left's vitriol toward Gov. Palin alone, is enough to make her a compelling figure.

That said, the Think Progress piece prompts a few quick points of order.

The real problem Think Progress has with the phrase 'death panel' is that it is, in fact, a perfect metaphor for Obamacare.

Each health care bill that has been passed in Congress substantially expands the scope of federal authority over health care. That was the point of the legislation. And this expansion of authority was the reason the Democrats fought so hard to pass something - anything, even.

But to the extent that the federal government has expanded it's role into the health care orbit, bureaucratic control cannot help but be expanded as well.

Accordingly, some bureaucrat somewhere will make a life and death decision regarding someone's health care at some point.

How then is the notion of a death panel anything but a tremendous metaphor that captures brilliantly the sentiment of the majority of Americans who are deeply concerned about the authority of bureaucrats to make exactly these sorts of life and death decisions? The bottom line is that the phrase is a great metaphor used in a politically effective way.

A more questionable use of metaphor that Think Progress (conveniently?) neglects to mention was Secretary Napolitano's ruminations on the Christmas Day airliner bombing.

Just two days after an Islamic terrorist tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said, "The system worked."

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Given that reasonable people know the system does not work when a terrorist attempts to bomb a flight while it is in midair, Think Progress would have to agree that the Secretary's obserations are either metaphors or lies.


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