New Rule: No More Boxing Metaphors

No doubt, boxing metaphors are thoroughly and irreversibly embedded in American pop lingo: "down for the count", "on the ropes", "hitting below the belt", "throw in the towel", "saved by the bell", and so on. Despite my general hostility toward cliches, I've basically come to terms with such parlance because it's a convenient way to make simple points about adversarial situations, and hey at least we're indirectly talking about my favorite sport. However, I must say that I've officially had it with grinning bobblehead pundits attempting to use mangled boxing metaphors to project their vacuous truth-draining narratives onto the latest oozefest in the cesspool of Beltway politics.

My fellow citizens of the world, to see and hear the proud, noble, and sweet science of fisticuffsmanship defiled by a stiff-hairsprayed parade of morons marinating in the slime of DC-speak, who wouldn't know a left feint from a right cross, is too much to bear.

The straw that broke the heavy bag chain came in today's New York Times political blog, The Caucus. I'm taking my time getting to it because I want to be sure to properly prepare you for what you're about to witness. Warning: The butchery of thought and language contained in the analogy that I'm about to post on this page could be potentially traumatizing. But we've come too far to turn back now, so let's just get this over with:

Like a boxer roaming the ring in search of one final roundhouse round, Barack Obama alighted again and again in Indiana in the past few days in hopes of pulling off a surprise in this Midwestern state.

Deep breath. Grease the eyebrows and cheekbones. Water. Look alive.

Now I've been a boxing fan for as long as I can remember and have been involved in martial arts and fight training since I was 12; and I've heard a lot of stupid things said about fighting. But this lede has got to be among the stupidest of them all. First of all, a boxer does not "roam the ring"; a boxer fights an opponent. Fighting means hitting while not getting hit. There's no "roaming" in boxing; there's footwork which is executed against an opponent according to the principles of fighting; there's no downtime for directionless whimsy. Second, what the hell is a "roundhouse round"? Much less "one final roundhouse round"? Does this allude to a roundhouse punch (i.e. a looping rear-hand shot) which results in a knockout or stoppage? Or is it perhaps an attempt to refer to a final round of boxing in which many roundhouse punches are thrown? If so, why is this desirable, seeing that straights, tight hooks, and inside uppercuts are always preferable to looping shots? Third, and most importantly, what does any of this have to do with the utterly predictable banality of a presidential candidate making a flurry of regional campaign stops in the last days before an election?

Since I suspect that these questions are more or less unanswerable, I hereby declare my New Rule for political pundits far and wide, large or small, mainstream or intelligent. If you don't know the difference between a check hook and a liver shot; if you can't distinguish clubbing, slapping, and looping punches; then please do yourself and all of us a literary, political, and philosophical favor: No More Boxing Metaphors. Add this to Lauren's new rule, and you might just give yourself a shot at accidentally making sense in your electoral pontifications.

Comments

[Jack Stephens]

Hey Kai, I just posted this comment up at Alas, a blog over my racist title on The Blog and the Bullet.

Sorry for not posting this earlier. I never read the comment thread until now nor did I receive Barry’s e-mail (not sure why).

I sincerely apologize for that racist title. Kai made some great points in pointing out that reusing the racist slogan from those shirts in Chicago was, in itself, racist and hurtful and I apologize profusely for that error and for the title post. I essentially was playing off of the title on the shirt and on Phil’s catch phrase but it ended up being racist (not coming off as racist, but simply racist). And again, I apologize.

I’d like to thank Barry for pointing this out in another e-mail (in where he mentioned the previous e-mail that never got to me) and to Tom Autopref for originally pointing it out and for Kai as well.

As a white male I am obviously unaware, no matter how hard I try, of certain aspects of racism within this country, even if I try to be anti-racist there is no such thing as erasing one’s white privielge [sic] and raicsm [sic] and therefore anti-racist allies can still be racist despite striving to be anti-racist. So I again thank Kai and Tom for pointing this out to me and for Kai in making his very apt commentary on the racism of my title.

I couldn't find an e-mail for you on this blog so I decided to just post on your latest blog post. Again, I apologize and I thank you for keeping me in check and pointing out my racism.

For those who want to know Kai was referring to this post on Alas a Blog:

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2008/04/20/horry-cow-that%e2%80%99s-racist/

[Kai]

Thanks, Jack, I know you meant no harm and I'm not trying to exact a pound of flesh or anything. Apology accepted with no hard feelings. Peace.

[Carmen Van Kerckhove]

LOL! Hear hear!

[Kai]

Carmen, hehehe I'm not the only one who's tired of ridiculous sports metaphors in political punditry, right? We have this whole professional class of DC babblers and all they can think of to say is, the same unoriginal stuff which every pathetic pundit says in every election: blah blah he's going for the knockout she's on the ropes blah blah. Actually I think many of them really need to be taught a few things about boxing; like, experientially taught. ;-)

[nezua]

"THERE'S NO ROAMING IN BOXING"

*****new line for the ages!!!

'mano, by the second graf this had me cracking UP and i didn't stop until the end. damn. gracias.

[Kai]

Glad you laughed, Nez. I really don't do enough silly pieces. But this here is deadly serious: There is no roaming in boxing! :)

[Carmen Van Kerckhove]

I also vote to ban food analogies to describe interraciality/multiraciality. No more freakin platanos and collard greens. No more watermelon sushi. No more fried chicken latkes.

(yes, all real phrases from real projects out there)

[Kai]

Carmen, I reject and denounce the use of food analogies in describing multi-/inter-raciality. Chopsticks are food-related so are included in this rejection and denunciation. Don't even think about shorthanding my ethnicity as kung pao or mooshoo or sweet and sour anything, unless you too desire a boxing lesson.

[van]

Someone at CNN reads your blog. That is how I felt when I saw AC360 tonight. He was being extra sensitive about using sports metaphors and made a comment to that effect. I was kind of left scratching my head-especially after having read your post earlier in the day.....
Great piece though!

[Kai]

Hehe, thanks for the heads up, Van. Who knows, maybe Anderson is starting to get genuinely embarrassed by all the sports metaphors, I mean it's really annoying by now. Then again, Cooper is not exactly the type to get embarrassed by, well, any amount of cheese, so maybe CNN's "blog reporters" did come across my screed, hehe. If so, I should say for the record that I find CNN's newsroom to be utterly packed with ridiculous intellectual lightweights so lacking in depth and knowledge that it is just an insult to journalism.

[belledame222]

I know, huh? Personally I'm for more miniature golf metaphors. Or figure skating. That would kick ASS.

"Hillary missed what should have been the simplest of moves for her, a double loop, and fell flat on her face. Too much backspin. Obama gets points for style, but he was wobbly on that last landing..."

[Kai]

belledame, yes I think that if we're gonna use sports metaphors, let them be about figure skating. "Hillary needs to land a quad to stay in it at this point. Her layback spins and footwork sequence have always been solid but it's just not enough to counter Obama's use of triple-triple combinations and his overall feel for the music and connection with the crowd."