Throwing Cliches Under the Bus

The yahoo headlines have angered me yet again.

Mitt Romney is quoted as allegedly saying that Obama has thrown Israel under the bus.

I sincerely hope he said "Obama has betrayed Israel" or "Obama has really let Israel down" or "Obama has hurt US-Israel relations in a shocking yet also somehow entirely predictable way," and that the reporter just got clever.

Because, you see, Obama can't possibly have thrown Israel under the bus.

I say this not just because an entire country can't really be thrown, like a person, under a bus. I get that the metaphor could be extended, though tortuously, to a nation. I guess.

No.

I say this because the bus has had so many people "thrown under" it in the last few years that it can no longer run.

It is piled on a pile of thrown corpses.

Its gears are jammed with blood and guts.

Now, when anyone tries to throw anyone under the bus, they can only throw the person in front of the bus, and since the bus is no longer moving, what with being on all the other people, the thrown person just gets up and walks away unscathed.

If Anna Karenina wandered by all sad and wanted to end her life, she would find the bus no decent substitute for the Russian railway.

Even if the bus -- driven, let us suppose by an undead Ms Frizzle bent on vengeance -- even if this bus had the magical ability to expand itself to enormous size or to rear up to crush its victims like an angry steed, it still would only end up propped on the prone bodies of so many -- from Jeremiah Wright to the middle school girl whose sister refused to lend her favorite sweater -- that it would have no power left to cover Israel.

So when Obama, using his mighty arms, gathered into one the nation of Israel and tossed them/it toward the reddened tires of the DeathBus, he just threw out his back for nothing.

Mitt, Mitt, Mitt.

Be true to yourself.

"Betray" is a good, old word. It is powerful. It is serious. You are a bland, serious man. Middle English suits you. Trying to talk like you are hip and urbane will fool no one.