metaphor sale

In the Sun Trevor Kavanagh writes that the local elections have “torpedoed this Government beneath the waterline.”

It would be a curious torpedo that hit a ship above the waterline. That's the trouble with metaphors and analogies (see Philips on Iran below) pretty soon, ok almost instantaneously, they unravel. "Life is like a game of chess." you might hear from someone - and it does sound profound. For a second before you think - ok who are the bishops? Where's the board? How come the rules don't apply equally across the board if you could find it in the first place?

The strength of a philosophical argument is in a inverse relation to the amount of metaphor and analogy it contains. Any political argument that compares present political action with appeasement in the 1930's automatically destroys itself.

True, reading the Sun one doesn't expect genius - nor gems like this though, "As Gordon Brown prowled the TV studios saying sorry yesterday, we were watching a dead man drowning. I give him six months."

That's a long time to watch a dead man drown - what next, 'one fine day in the middle of the night. . .'