In two consecutive columns (last Tuesday and Friday), I’ve inadvertently used the term “beat about the bush”. Today, however, I want to pick up that term again, this time metaphorically beating about the Bush who currently sits in the White House.
First, this from the Guardian:
As George Bush sits in the Oval Office, perhaps the lamest of all lame ducks, Barack Obama is looking presidential for the press, fielding calls from world leaders and mulling appointments to his new cabinet (Still weeks to go, but America tunes into Obama as Bush fades from view, November 9 2008).
My question to you is, why is George Bush called a lame duck?
Well, let the beating about the Bush begin.
The literal meaning first. A lame duck is one that can’t walk because, say, there’s a thorn in her flabby foot as is in accordance with Androcles and the Duck, from Aesop’s Fables. In the fable, Androcles the escaped slave, helped to pull the thorn from the lame duck, an otherwise ferocious man-eating creature, and the two became friends. This is perhaps the origin of the phrase “lame duck”, metaphorically referring to someone who’s gone lame and become ineffective.
George Bush is not referred to as a “lame duck” in this sense, however, not on the strength or weakness of his feet and legs – the guy runs miles daily and is NOT crippled, he is not lame. Intellectually lame perhaps, according to some harsh critics (Bush Sr., Dole, Bush Jr., McCain: Where’s the substantive difference? They are all intellectually lame Republicans
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