{"id":5395,"date":"2011-03-25T15:14:25","date_gmt":"2011-03-25T15:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/?p=5395"},"modified":"2011-03-25T23:45:58","modified_gmt":"2011-03-25T23:45:58","slug":"driving-a-metaphor-into-a-ditch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/?p=5395","title":{"rendered":"Driving A Metaphor Into A Ditch."},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Driving%20A%20Metaphor%20Into%20A%20Ditch.%20\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>The other day, <a href=\"http:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/?p=5378\">I noted this<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>And wasn\u2019t there some campaign speech given by Obama about not putting  the car in \u201cR\u201d after driving into a ditch???  OK, logically, if you\u2019ve  driven into a ditch, and you\u2019re being pulled out, wouldn\u2019t putting the  car in \u201cD\u201d be the move that puts you right back into said ditch???? The  rhetoric never really made sense\u2026 but that\u2019s politics I suppose.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A commenter at <a href=\"http:\/\/althouse.blogspot.com\/2011\/03\/i-need-nows-defense-like-fish-needs.html\">Althouse&#8217;s<\/a> blog took me to task for getting the metaphor wrong, and President Obama and crew were <strong>pushing<\/strong> the car out of the ditch, not <strong>pulling<\/strong> it!<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Obama <strong>never<\/strong> said that about the car&#8211;you&#8217;ve got it completely wrong. His analogy was actually quite brilliant, even if mistaken.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Disregarding the last bit of the comment (&#8220;<em>His analogy was actually quite brilliant, even if mistaken<\/em>&#8220;&#8230; What does that mean, exactly?)\u00a0 I recalled him saying he pulled the car out, but I may be remembering incorrectly, and crossing my wires with other politicians who said they pulled the car out of the ditch&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Uhm, no.\u00a0 He DID say it! From Politico:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The first time President Barack Obama used the metaphor at a Democratic  fundraiser in April, he spent exactly four sentences on it: \u201cAnd yet,  after driving our economy into the ditch, they decided to stand on the  side of the road and watch us while we <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>pulled<\/strong><\/span> it out of the ditch,\u201d  Obama said at the Los Angeles event for Sen. Barbara Boxer of  California. \u201cThey asked, \u2018Why haven&#8217;t you <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>pulled<\/strong><\/span> it out fast enough?\u2019 \u2018I  noticed there&#8217;s, like, a little scratch there in the fender. Why didn&#8217;t  you do something about that?\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There it is&#8230;\u00a0 <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>pulled<\/strong><\/span>&#8230; twice.<\/p>\n<p>The metaphor\u00a0 evolved as the campaign twisted on its merry way; and what started with pulling the car out of the ditch then became something about handing over the keys, and eventually the story evolved to include the &#8220;D&#8221; and &#8220;R&#8221; bits. When he got to that point, he DID say push instead of pull. So in regard to that <strong><em>specific<\/em><\/strong> telling of the metaphor, at that specific time, when he mentioned the &#8220;D&#8221; and &#8220;R&#8221; thing, I was indeed incorrect.<\/p>\n<p>Now that that is out of the way,  lets examine the analogy.\u00a0 Obama  would sometimes say push, other times it would be pull. I think we can agree that the economic crash  of 2008 was no little pot hole; this was a ditch&#8230; a <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>BIG<\/strong><\/span> ditch! But this is where  real world experience comes in.\u00a0 In the real world you almost never  &#8220;push&#8221; a car out of a ditch, you pull.<\/p>\n<p>Why?<\/p>\n<p>Two reasons.<\/p>\n<p>(1) \u00a0   If you drive a car into a ditch at any speed, it goes in nose first.  Because the front end is where the engine is at in most cars, that  weight causes the front end to wedge into the ditch. This makes pushing  it out impossible.<\/p>\n<p>(2)\u00a0\u00a0  If the car was driven off the road into  the ditch, and you push the car out of the ditch&#8230; Oh, you&#8217;re on the  wrong side of the ditch! The road is on the other side!!!!<\/p>\n<p>If that&#8217;s the case, no wonder the economic recovery is going so crappy.  We&#8217;re not on the road to recovery. Obama and company pushed the car to the the wrong side of the ditch and now we&#8217;re stuck in the field of economic stagnation! <\/p>\n<p>Good going Democrats!!!  \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>PS. I live in an area where agriculture is king, and there are lots of ditches around   here. Myself? I&#8217;ve never driven into one. Got stuck on an island once cutting a turn too tight. But people plow their cars into ditches. It happens quite a bit. They   NEVER EVER push a car out of the ditch. It is always pulled out, with a   tow truck.<\/p>\n<p>And, seeing that he spent so much time on his ranch, where there are a lot of  ditches, I&#8217;m better Ronald Reagan would have never had this kind of \u00a0 &#8220;push&#8221; \/ &#8220;pull&#8221; confusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Driving%20A%20Metaphor%20Into%20A%20Ditch.%20\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>The other day, I noted this: And wasn\u2019t there some campaign speech given by Obama about not putting the car in \u201cR\u201d after driving into a ditch??? OK, logically, if you\u2019ve driven into a ditch, and you\u2019re being pulled out, wouldn\u2019t putting the car in \u201cD\u201d be the move that puts you right back into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,27],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5395"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5411,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395\/revisions\/5411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}