Political Quote-Mongering

As Saturday's election looms, I can't resist quoting Anya, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in reference to John Howard. Thus:

"Captain Logic is not steering this tugboat. I smell Captain Fear at the wheel!"

And with Pamela Curr speculating - not unreasonably - whether today's 'magic boat' of asylum seekers might have been nudged along for the festivities, it's small wonder. Coast-guard to Liberal Party: you are taking on water. Keep your necks out of it and wait for the Defence Force to send out the Emergency Flotation Device (currently deflated and draped concealingly over a bevy of large, helicopter-shaped objects).

Or, to quote Lorne of the Buffy spin-off, Angel:

"If I was about to face your future, I'd make like Carmen Miranda and die."

Annabel Crabb has (as usual) hit the nail on the head, remarking on the strangeness of John Howard guaranteeing his retirement from politics - however hypothetically - instead of hanging on like Monty Burns to a wad of greenbacks. Much like the Richard Nixon of Futurama, one imagines Howard persisting as a not-so-spectral talking head (gefilte fish jar optional), haunting parliament with such rousing dictums borrowed from the future Earth President as:

"Let's storm the place!...Without my prior knowledge."

But, as they say, it's rarely wise to count one's chickens before they hatch - or to assume that a grinning, bespectacled, bean-counting unionist will break shell in place of a blepheronic*, troglodytic, Republican-fearing shemp. As A. A. Milne once beautifully opined:

"You never can tell with bees."

Well, politicians. But the principle's the same.




*Blepheronic - A sadly defunct adjective descriptive of anyone with abnormally large eyebrows.