Endorsements, Part Two

The L.A. Times’ endorsement of Obama had me at hello, and then had me again at “experience has value only if it is accompanied by courage and leads to judgment,” and then it sealed the deal with a surprise turn to my favorite type of language:

In the language of metaphor, Clinton is an essay, solid and reasoned; Obama is a poem, lyric and filled with possibility. Clinton would be a valuable and competent executive, but Obama matches her in substance and adds something that the nation has been missing far too long -- a sense of aspiration.

I liked this metaphor so much I decided to turn it into what in literary circles is known as an “extended metaphor":

The essay that is Hillary Clinton is an essay I copied off the internet, written by a kid who also sells his Ritalin and is rich from online investing, and I could probably get a better grade if I wrote my own essay, but I’d rather just keep watching this Project Runway marathon.

The lyric poem that is Barack Obama is this:

Sing on, dearest brother—warble your reedy song;
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.
O liquid, and free, and tender! O wild and loose to my soul! O wondrous singer!
You only I hear…yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart;)
Yet the lilac, with mastering odor, holds me.

That poem is by me.