Eubanks

Following the President’s State of the Union address last week, Republican representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado had the following criticism of President Bush’s temporary worker program: “I am disappointed but not surprised that the president has chosen once again to trot out this same old pig, albeit one with a slightly new shade of lipstick.” I thought that this was a very interesting metaphor for him to use. It sheds a light on how he feels not only about the president’s proposal, but the president himself.

The most obvious part of the metaphor is that he is calling the president’s proposal an “old pig”. Thinking of the president’s proposal as a pig evokes images and smells that are both quite unpleasant. In addition stating that is an old pig makes it even more unpleasant. To help complete the visual metaphor he describes the pig as wearing a “slightly new shade of lipstick”. As if the image of an old pig was not ugly enough now one has the picture of a pig with lipstick smeared all over its face.

In addition to the visual image the metaphor has other implications. It is saying that president Bush is being dishonest and deceitful. He is using cheap tricks to try and disguise an ugly old pig as something that is not just different, but beautiful and pleasant. However it is quite obvious that lipstick will not make a pig look beautiful, and in fact will make it look much worse. The message is that this lackluster attempt by the president to disguise his plan is actually much worse than if he had just been straightforward and said the same thing again.