Friday, October 20, 2006

Senator Santorum (R-PA) compares America to "The Land of Sorrow"

Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), decided to exhibit a fine case of hoof/mouth disease:

"As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else," Santorum said, describing the tool the evil Lord Sauron used in search of the magical ring that would consolidate his power over Middle-earth.

"It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S." Santorum continued. "You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States"

For proper analysis of Santorum's hoof/mouth, it's obvious that several things must be promptly shunted off the table.

First off, Time and Space go bye-bye due to the fact that Bush's Real Iraq Adventure-turned-quagmire started in 2003, whereas Tolkien wrote his Fantasy books in 1954,

Secondly, we also have to say adios to JRR Tolkien's thoughts on his own work:

"As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical."
~JRR Tolkien, Forward, Lord of the Rings

But okay, Santorum has decided to live in his own fantasyland. You know, the same fantasyland that argues "Staying the course" will lead to "victory", without defining either "the course" or "victory". For the sake of Illuvatar-knows-what, let's just set aside time/space and Tolkien's post-humous "fuck you", and endulge Herr Santorum with his analogy.

The first part seems pretty straight forward:

The Army at the gates of Mordor as a distraction for the Eye of Sauron
-is to-

US military in Iraq as a distraction to "terrorism"

Seems fairly straight forward. But distracting The Eye of Sauron (terrorism) from what? As you can see, from this point on Santorum's comparison falls apart exponentially... or maybe not? Taking the comparison to it's proper fruition:

The Eye of Sauron (Terrorism) is being distracted by the army marching toward at The Black Gate (Iraq). Because of this distraction, the Eye of Sauron (Terrorism) is focused away from MORDOR (America) .
DOH!!! (or hmmmmmmmm....).

Perhaps we should just set-aside Time/Space or Tolkien's grave-rolling and post-humous fuck you's & just take Santorum at his word. C'mon ABCNews, grow some minerals and run with this headline:

"Senator Santorum Compares America to Mordor"
(ie, The Black Land/Land of Sorrow)

Alright don't then, you cowards - but I will.

Note:
A few other blogerrific individuals have been hard at work mining this story...
Blogger Allyn properly connects Santorum's logic - noting the the army in LOTR was being sent on a complete suicide mission. Santorum forgets of course that the US(Mordor) owns no magic rings.(???)
On a lighter note, photo funster Kvatch has fun with Santorum (ie, The Mouth of Sauron).

Note 2: For shits-n-giggles, do a google search of
"Santorum" and hit "I'm feeling lucky". You google-bombing pranksters/geniuses, you!