A Glass Half Full of Quagmire

Quote:  “If this is an opportunity, what’s Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?”  Richard Haass, former official with the Bush State Department, in the Washington Post.

Figure of Speech:  diasyrmus (di-a-SYR-mus), the ridiculous comparison.

In his weekly radio address, Bush called the war in Lebanon “a moment of opportunity.”  That got a laugh out of Richard Haass, who was the State Department’s policy director during Bush’s first term. Haass ridicules Bush’s knee-jerk optimism with a diasyrmus (“tearing apart”), a comparison that reduces the opponent’s point to absurdity.

The diasyrmus is a powerful figure because it’s tough to answer without digging yourself even deeper into absurdity.  Which, come to think of it, does not seem to bother this president.

Snappy Answer:  “Halliburton sure thought so.”

Comments

[Doc L]

In sales speak, we Americans could then say that North Korea is a lead and Iran is a cold call.