Remember Bush's recent speech -- the one in which he said this:
"In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called, "The Quiet American." It was set in Saigon, and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism -- and dangerous naivete. Another character describes Alden this way: "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused."
After America entered the Vietnam War, the Graham Greene argument gathered some steam. As a matter of fact, many argued that if we pulled out there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people. (...) The world would learn just how costly these misimpressions would be."
Lots of people were astonished that Bush would invoke Graham Greene's The Quiet American in the course of defending his invasion of Iraq. I was one of them, and I wrote a post about it, in which I said:
"For Bush to compare opponents of the wars in Vietnam and Iraq to Alden Pyle is like King Leopold of Belgium countering criticism of his genocidal policies in the Congo, which resulted in the deaths of millions, by comparing his critics to Captain Kurtz from Heart of Darkness; or like a pedophile defending himself by comparing his critics to Humbert Humbert. It's downright surreal."
This set off lots of fun in the comments at Obsidian Wings. One commenter came up with some particularly creative suggestions: Bush invoking Alden Pyle is "like placing Anna Karenina in charge of AMTRAK privatization because the government is to blame for not removing severed heads from the tracks in a timely and cost-effective manner," or "like exterminator Tom Delay naming Gregor Samsa as his press spokesman."
So, gentle readers: can you come up with even better (i.e., funnier) comparisons? If so, there's a thread open at Obsidian Wings where you can share them with the world.