Tim Blair

Why not get him one of those hamster wheels? When he falls out of it, he can blame those Secret Service sons-o-bitches.

The best metaphor the NYT can come up with for Kerry is a friggin' hamster? A member of the rodent family? You know -- a relative of the mouse?

Or the rat, if you prefer.

Like a caged hamster, Senator John Kerry is restless on the road.

Somehow I can't help but picture Kerry as a mini-Hulk after reading that; pacing back and forth in his campaign HQ, muttering "don't make me angry, you won't like me when I'm angry...let me ouuuuutttt!"

Maybe he's going for the Dean vote.

"Like a caged tiger pacing to and fro" would have implied too much masculinity and power.

Valery in fact composed a prose poem or so on the tiger and his restlessness, probably what the NYT had in mind. Herewith edited and updated for hamsters. It's the hamsterization of America.

London - hamster in the zoo - a superb animal, a head of
formidible solemnity and that mask one knows, in which there is something
Mongolian, regal force, potentiality, an occult look of power, of something
that has gone past cruelty, fatality rather; the features of a truly
absolute monarch at rest; bored, perilous, loaded: impossible to be more
completely hamster than that.

Yet this splendid beast crosses, uncrosses, his limbs; from time to time
one sees muscles flexing gently under that fulvous mantle streaked with
black. The tail is alive. Is he aware of these far displacements? The
beast is a sort of empire.

The ``sparking off'' of local reflexes - must attempt to decipher the life
locked within...

Pendulary motion of wild beasts along the grills where their stripes
rub the bars.

He opens his jaws. Yawns - presence and absence of the hamster's soul,
eternally waiting for something to happen...

No fierceness: something altogether more formidable - an inexpressible
certainty of being deadly.

What fullness, faultless egoism, sovereign isolation! The imminence of all
that he is worth is upon him...

Impossible to be more oneself, more exactly armed, endowed, charged,
instructed in all the concerns being perfectly hamster. Every appetite,
temptation, finds its perfect instrument in him ready to hand.

Rhetorical query? Isn't hamster just another name
for 'Rat'?

Oh well. My one creative thought of the week and
JeffS gets it first. ARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

That's OK, Mike.....great minds think alike, y'know? ;-)

He is chronically and unapologetically late

Another one. Why is this always being put out there as a positive and not the deeply negative trait it is? People who are late all the time are telegraphing thier deep disregard for other people. My time is important, I want a candidate that understands that.

And of course the obligatory Demospin, he's not just schmart he's superschmart.

"It's sort of a mix of those two things: Up on pop culture more than most people running for president; at the same time, he's read all these books by people whose names I can't pronounce."

So very predictable.

""he's read all these books by people whose names I can't pronounce.""

He seems more fit to have a job at a local library.

"New York Times unleashes vicious attack on John Kerry's patriotisim."

Is he maybe one of those Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters? I used to love that comic...

Fantastic, his new campaign song can be that awful Smashing Pumpkins wank that goes "Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage".

A perfect fit.

Soon to be announced!

Richard Gere throws his support behind Kerry campaign.

Gere comments: "It really effected me deeply reading about Mr Kerry, scuttling around in his cage, working that wheel - all alone ahhhh yes."

"trying to break out for a walk around the block, a restaurant dinner, the latest movie."

Or wine. Or lunch.

NY Slimes’ comatose old formula for favored weirdos like Jerry Brown (California’s former Gov. Moonbeam) & John Kerry—“reaches the heart yet appeals to head” & “up on pop stuff yet deeply intellectual” etc. Barfstream media.

'Pop' goes the...hamster?

Apologies to

William Blake. 1757–1827

489. The Hamster

Hamster, hamster, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Hamster, hamster, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

When you get right down to it, it’s such a WEIRD way to begin an article. If the article’s author or editor didn’t like “caged tiger,” why didn’t they just use “caged cat”?

And it’s an ill composed sentence. Like a caged hamster, Senator John Kerry is restless on the road. Yeah, you know how restless a caged hamster always becomes on the road.

The Times has this is all wrong.

John Kerry = Lurch
Howard Dean = Angry Hamster

You....rang?

Then again, he does sorta look like a hamster.

What's with the constant thrilling to people who read a lot of books? I love to read about pretty much anything, and I'd make a lousy leader. You know why? Because I'd rather read. Every time I see someone at the NYT waxing poetic about "so intellectual! so bright!" I always flash back to "The Great Gatsby," where the dimbulb Daisy says of her jerkwad husband, "Tom's getting profound. He reads books with long words in them."

(Actually "Deep books" but for some reason the filter doesn't like that combination, so there it is).

As for that hamster metaphor? Not even going there. That's lame on so many levels.

I'm confused - he's a Demochamster?

Cheez, thanks for the post! Kibble and cedar chips, another unwanted visual to associate with the fearless and steadfast (so long as he's on that little running wheel thingy) John Kerry.

Ernie G: Hahaha! Funny stuff. =)