Some years ago I was watching a Fellini film in which one of the characters, after taking a frigid dip in the icy, early-morning waters of the Mediterranean, declared, “My jewels are BB’s.” I recall my friend turning to me and saying, “Nothing like defining a metaphor with a metaphor.”
That incident came to mind when I saw a tweet by Tinseltown denizen Rob Reiner, which reads:
Stating the obvious: Trump’s presidency has literally hit a wall. And he continues to bang his head against it. We are awash in metaphors, but we will never lose sight of the truth. Donald Trump is a cancer on the soul of America. He will be removed so Democracy can live again.
Stating the obvious: Trump’s presidency has literally hit a wall. And he continues to bang his head against it. We are awash in metaphors, but we will never lose sight of the truth. Donald Trump is a cancer on the soul of America. He will be removed so Democracy can live again.
— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) January 6, 2019
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
The content is the usual anti-Trump drivel we are accustomed to seeing from Reiner and his ilk: a lock-step recitation of the collective grievances of the Democratic Party and their enablers in the mainstream media. There is even a slightly muffled threat of revolution.
But the styling of the tweet seems to contain a bit of self-deprecation. Reiner’s day jobs include director and film writer. In other words, he works with words for a living. And yet in a tweet containing the observation “We are awash in metaphors” — which itself contains the metaphor awash — he offers up no fewer than five metaphors.
Is this intentional, or is Reiner a bigger boob than I give him credit for being?
