The winter of the shark; the winter of their discontent
2001 was the summer of the shark, as TIME reported on July 30 of that year; as everyone knows, the summer of the shark ended on September 11, 2001:
There are three ways they strike: the hit-and-run, the bump-and-bite and the sneak attack. The hit-and-run is the most common. The shark may see the sole of a swimmer’s foot, think it’s a fish and take a bite before realizing this isn’t its usual prey. It swims away, leaving the bleeding victim in need of stitches. The bump-and-bite is far more serious.
Now we find ourselves in the winter of the shark. The sharks of the Democratic Left and the MSM also attack in three ways: (a) the premeditated attack, like using Richard Clarke to set the table in 2004 with pre-9/11 Bush incompetence; (b) the counter-attack, like the hit piece in the NYT two weeks after the SwiftBoatVets’ ads first ran; and (c) the opportunistic strike, of which the two greatest are WMD and Abu Ghraib. Sometimes the attacks are a combination strike, and those used to be particularly powerful in the days before the New Media. Rathergate, al Qa Qaa, and the NSA leak story meant to kill the Patriot Act are all examples of combination attacks.
The winter of the shark also seeks to take us back to the days before 9-11, back to that trivial time, as though 9-11 never happened. Thus Democrats who voted for the Iraq war 29-21 in the Senate have been tripping all over themselves to disown or undo their votes. Thus Democrats who voted 47-1 for the Patriot Act now vote 42-2 against it. We have never seen behavior as strange as this.
We sense a marked increase in the intensity of these shark attacks during the course of this year. We attribute this ferocity and relentlessness to desperation on the part of the sharks. They have never before operated in waters with so many shark hunters as there are today, thanks to the New Media.
Addendum
We’ll conclude by switching our metaphors; sorry, but we just can’t avoid hoping for our adversaries’ discontent in the winter of their deformed ambitions:
I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams…
Addendum II
Or maybe this, from either George W or Henry V (HT: WoW):
O for a Muse of fire, that would count
Every undervote in Florida!
An empire for a stage, cronies to nod their heads,
And neocon puppets to choke on pretzels!
Then should the doofus W, like himself,
Cower behind Dick Cheney, and at his heels
(Leashed in, like the Supreme Court) should racism, bigotry and greed
Crouch for employment. Like millions of jobless citizens.
Unfortunately at that time racial and class differences
Were caricatured in ways that may have embarrassed
And even hurt people of color, women and ethnic groups.
This war was wrong then and ’tis wrong today.