Like Comparing Apples To Orange-Shaped Hand Grenades

Comprehensive immigration reform is like Iraq, sez Mickey.

No! Economic stimulus is like Iraq, sez Applebaum.

No! The auto bailout is like Iraq, sez Mickey.

No! The auto bailout is like the Middle East, sez David Sanger.

No! The auto bailout is like Vietnam, sez Mickey.

Ugh.

There was a time, during the 2006 midterm elections, when I wanted to outlaw the playing of football, just so George Allen would stop making football analogies.



Reading the fifteen-thousandth "this thing I clearly don't quite understand is like this war that I'm also not totally sure about" analogy, I think it's about time to outlaw war. If not for the death and destruction and all, can we at least do it for the good of the poor, tortured similes?

[Does this mean you'll be marching in next week's Code Pink/A.N.S.W.E.R. joint rally/papier mache-off? -- ed. Front row, center!]

Yet Another Domestic Iraq

In the course of complaining about how Obama refuses to use his new perch to destroy America's unions (was that a campaign promise?), Mickey says:

The auto bailout sounds more like Iraq every week.

Now, Mickey's not the first one to compare the auto bailout to an intractable foreign policy clusterfuck (and not the the first one I've mocked for doing so), and Mickey's certainly not the only one at Slate above comparing Thing A to Thing B on the flimsiest of pretenses (George Lucas is like Henry Kissinger!, the UAW is like immigration activists!, etc.), and it's definitely not Mickey's first foray into "Hey liberals, this thing I hate is like that war you hate!" territory. But, still.

It really is remarkable that Mickey can look at the Iraq War, with its massive cost, shifting rationale, availability of other less-bad options, and lack of meaningful oversight ... and see the Auto Bailout.

But then I remember that Mickey can't blame the collapse of Lehman Brothers on Democratic special interest groups, and it all makes sense.