Mixed Metaphor Department
James Taranto in yesterday's Best of the Web points this out about Chuck Shumer:

A New York Sun editorial remarks on the gift for metaphor of New York's other senator, Chuck "The Knife" Schumer:

No sooner had [former] Senators [Connie] Mack and [John] Breaux unleashed their ideas on making the federal tax code more simple and fair than Senator Schumer unsheathed his rusty old dagger, describing the idea of eliminating the federal deduction for state and local taxes as "a dagger to the heart of the people of New York." Voters might be inclined to listen -- except for the fact that Mr. Schumer sees a dagger virtually everywhere he looks.

A 2003 plan for flexible work schedules instead of overtime? "A dagger to the heart of the middle class," Mr. Schumer said, according to the Associated Press. A 2002 plan by federal regulators to urge Wall Street firms to establish backup facilities outside New York City? A "dagger pointed at the heart of New York," Mr. Schumer said, according to the Daily News. High gas prices? "A dagger at the heart of our economy," Mr. Schumer said in 2000, according to the New York Times. A unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood would be "a dagger through the heart of the peace process," Mr. Schumer said in 2000, according to the Agence France Presse.

Hate crimes "put a dagger in the heart of what America is all about," Mr. Schumer said in 1999, according to USA Today. A proposal to change the federal transportation funding formula was "a dagger pointed at" New York and California, Mr. Schumer said in 1999, according to the Washington Post. School vouchers? "Daggers that plunge into the heart of what is the American way," Mr. Schumer said in May 1999, according to the New York Post. Cuts in federal student aid? "A dagger to New York's college students," Mr. Schumer told Newsday in 1995.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Mr. Schumer sees daggers more often than a four-eyed knife thrower looking through a kaleidoscope.

We're trying to imagine Schumer's reaction to the latest revelation of Harriet Miers's abortion views: Miss Miers, I worry that your extreme antichoice position is the tip of an iceberg, an iceberg that is a dagger pointed at the heart of the mainstream. The sheer entertainment of watching Schumer go on like this is almost enough to make us hope the Miers nomination lasts long enough to make it to the Judiciary Committee.

Base10 doesn't like Sen. Schumer's habit of holding vacuous press conferences over non-controversial issues--usually on a weekend--to garner gratuitous TV face time. But Base10's never heard the dagger thing before. Pretty funny. Here's a link to the original Sun article.
- posted by Base10 @ 9:39 AM