Kevin Williamson explores the VA cloud at NRO.

Red lines...

Patrick Brennan of NRO quotes a State Department official: "We're not going to get into what the consequences would be, other than to say that there's a red line...A red line is a red line."

Does this statement imply that "a red line" is no longer a metaphor? 

A red line is a red line is a red line, and is NOT a "red line"... The inferred metaphor of understanding (by the reporter and almost any other English-speaking person) is mistaken according to the spokesman. Rather, it is a trivial loop, an identity. Consequently, new information is provided -- the administration is unlikely to respond to movement of forbidden weapons, because a red line may be crossed, metaphorically, but the crossed line is only a red line. 

So little parsing, so little time... 

Drudge wink

Drudge does it again:

From TPM:

“I want to be absolutely clear: I accept no responsibility for the actions of a rogue chemist,” Auerbach said, before adding: “At the Department of Public Health, the buck stops with me.”

From today's Daily Caller newsletter (also here):

3.) OCCUPY something else -- Describing himself as a leader of movement that's supposed to be leaderless, Aaron Black told TheDC's Josh Peterson that he is no longer particularly enthused by the Occupy movement:
"'I hope you don’t take that the wrong way,' he said. ”I am the organizing arm of Occupy Wall Street' ... He had time to greet friends and walk around, but on the edge of [Zuccotti Park], Black told TheDC he was frustrated. 'I’m tired of this,' he said, as the clock neared midnight. 'I’m tired of them,' he said, pointing to the remaining contingent of Occupiers in the park. 'I’m tired of them,' he said, pointing to the NYPD. 'I’m tired of this whole #@%&p;?*&@| thing.'"

From today's Daily Caller newsletter:

4.) Daily Caller asks Politico about Daily Caller book -- Politico's Byron Tau reported for his publication that two Daily Caller reporters (really editors) are publishing a book about an "Obama lizard conspiracy." So TheDC asked Tau if he had any more info on the book:

"'You’re writing this story FOR The Daily Caller?' Tau responded when asked whether he had any further information on the ebook. 'Couldn’t you just ask your coworkers? They would know better than I would. I just pulled from the Amazon description.'"

[Eds. note: The book in question is ”The Lizard King: The Shocking Inside Account of Obama’s True Intergalactic Ambitions by an Anonymous White House Staffer," which will be released on Oct. 9. It may be the best book written in the history of man --- or at least Daily Caller history.]

It's also available here.

James Taranto writes,

TAMPA, Fla.--In response to yesterday's column, reader Paul Wicker writes: "I was wildly disappointed in the rambling wet-shoe autobiographical romp through parts of Tampa when it struck me that this column was a metaphor about the RNC shutting down the convention for no reason leaving lots of smart folk with nothing to do. Seen in that light, it was brilliant!"

Certainly a nice compliment, but it was a synecdoche, not a metaphor.

synecdoche, A whole is represented by naming one of its parts (genus named for species), or vice versa (species named for genus).

synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for thespecial, as in ten sail  for ten ships  or a Croesus  for a rich man.
synecdoche : a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole (asfifty sail for fifty ships), the whole for a part (as society forhigh society), the species for the genus (as cutthroat forassassin), the genus for the species (as a creature for a man), or the name of the material for the thing made (asboards for stage)