Hyperbole

Beware Republican Senators and Governors who have only a half-remembered sense of history and high school sophomore English. With the passage of health care upon us -- totally, for real this time, no take backs -- GOP opposition has moved from huddling for warmth with tea partiers to making bad historical and literary analogies about the oncoming flood of marginally better health coverage that we're all going to receive.

Up first is Lindsay Graham, off fresh from Sunday talk show hysterics complaining that two similar things aren't similar, who looks at the push to pass health care and sees in the eyes of Nancy Pelosi... the Yellow Peril!

"Nancy Pelosi, I think, has got them all liquored up on sake and you know, they're making a suicide run here," Graham said Monday during a call to the Keven Cohen Show on WVOC radio in Columbia, S.C.

Yes, because when the Japanese were ramming zeroes into aircraft carriers, it typically resulted in the betterment of health care conditions in the immediate area for all sailors. Truthfully, if anything is going to sink this country it's a reform plan that expands access, cuts costs, and cuts the deficit. It's just a shame the Speaker had to get Barney Frank drunk, tie one of those rising sun bandannas to his head, and yell "banzai" as he careened into the House floor to ram his body into the voting area, causing it to burst into flames. Surely there was a better way.

On the other hand, a jobless ex-Senator and an Argentinian hiking enthusiast who is inexplicably still with a job decided that they were going to brush off some Shakespeare studies they kind of remembered to make reference to a date they realized just happened.

Sanford released a statement earlier saying that today -- March 15 -- is the day Julius Caesar was murdered, sometimes known as the Ides of March. The day is usually associated with a sense of foreboding, and Sanford warned the public to be wary of health care reform.

Trent Lott agreed today on Fox News: "Shakespeare warned us to beware the Ides of March. That's today, and I have a very ominous feeling about what's fixing to happen on health care votes."

So you're worried that a bunch of crooked Senators are going to murder the leader of this country with knives on the Senate floor in an attempt to overthrow the government? Because that's what happened of the Ides of March. The day isn't associated with a sense of foreboding, Mark; it's associated with the murder of Julius Caesar. But if this isn't just a bad metaphor and you know something more specific about that crazy look in John McCain's eye, you should speak up. Just a warning though, this is going to end with Sasha Obama as President, tasked with hunting down the conspirators with Joe Biden in Macedonia, right? Just so we're clear.

So be forewarned, this health care battle is not only like a suicide attack, but it's also going to result in a child President ganking a Republican senator in Phillipi after a coup. It's going to be a hectic next few days, I only hope this country can survive a moderate ascension on the WHO health rankings.