Metaphor Off 2008!

"People who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch."

A commenter on Politico's Ben Smith's blog brings up an interesting point:

Everyone is up in arms about David Shuster's comment but nobody talked about the disturbing comments coming out of NOW NY State such as "gangbang" etc.

The comments she is talking about are these from Marcia Pappas, President NOW - New York State:

...Then there was that movie where Jodie Foster portrayed the true story of woman who was ganged raped in a bar while others looked on and encouraged the realization. Still others pretended the rape didn't happen. In short, gang raping of women is commonplace in our culture both physically and metaphorically.

This past week, we witnessed just such a phenomenon involving men who are afraid of a powerful woman. Hillary Clinton, in her quest for her Presidential nomination, has in fact endured infantile taunting and wildly inappropriate commentary. Indeed we have witnessed almost comical attacks by John Edwards who in turn sided with Barak Obama as both snickered at Clinton's "breakdown," which consisted of a very short dewy-eyed moment. Now John Kerry, who should certainly know better after his own "swiftboating," has joined the playground gang.

Oh yeah, the title of that press release was "Psychological Gang Bang of Hillary is Proof We Need a Woman President."


If only there were an inflammatory metaphor for what Marcia Pappas did to metaphors...

As far as I know, neither the national NOW president, nor Hillary Clinton has condemned this extreme metaphor. National NOW President Kim Gandy did respond to another controversial press release from Pappas, which had declared Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama "the ultimate betrayal." But nothing about her accusing John Edwards, Barack Obama and John Kerry of "psychological gang banging."

I don't remember Howard Wolfson calling those comments "beneath contempt" or "disgusting."

This doesn't excuse David Shuster's inapt metaphor. But if you're going to blast one demeaning, inappropriately sexualized metaphor, how about a little consistency?