When lemmings pounce!
It is unknown why lemming populations fluctuate with such variance roughly every four years, before plummeting to near extinction.

-- Wiki Lemming entry

Well, you gotta admit, as four year plans go, there's nothing like starting with a clean slate.

In fairness, though, it should be noted that while lemmings do occasionally jump from cliffs into the sea, the idea is migration, not suicide.

Pouncing is another matter. Usually we think of that as feline behavior.

So it was with great bemusement and puzzlement that I read an Obama staffer's remark about how Hillary Clinton's "lemmings" "pounced" on Barack Obama:

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Well, but you can't argue that the Clinton campaign didn't do some serious damage in light of the Wright stuff and the bitter comments--

SCARBOROUGH: That wasn't the Clinton campaign.

BRZEZINSKI: They pounced on it like lemmings.

SCARBOROUGH: That wasn't the Clinton campaign--

BRZEZINSKI: Oh, please.

SCARBOROUGH: And I don't know if lemmings actually pounce. I think lemmings go over cliffs.

Asks Mark Finkelstein,
Like Mika with her metaphor?

It's going to be tough, but thought I would try to decontextualize and then recontextualize the conflated and mangled subtext of the lemmings.

Nah, on second thought, it's too nice a day and I don't feel like looking for presidents precedents. (I won't even attempt to tie in the time Jimmy Carter was viciously pounced on by a killer rabbit.)

I did find this, though:

rush_lemmings_001.jpg

(No, I absolutely do not feel like photoshopping in Barack Obama being bombarded by hordes of Hillary's Limbaugh-driven lemmings.)

My simple advice to Mika and the Obama campaign is this:

if you're stuck with lemmings (especially bitter lemmings), try making lemmingade.

posted by Eric on 04.22.08 at 01:42 PM





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Comments

Unfortunately lemmings don't jump into the sea, it's a Disney lemming snuff film, called White Wilderness, that brought that "fact" into the mainstream.

John   ·  April 22, 2008 02:12 PM

It doesn't understand the Rush audience, either.

One, he's using traditional American self-deprecating humor, in the larger-than-life persona, something that the left cannot dare to duplicate for itself. (Except when Rush goes on a morals binge, and then he's deadly dull for a week.)

Two, Rush rakes the media over the coals, which is what all of the audience are fed up with themselves, and why they're listening now, and why they started listening. Finally somebody is talking about these media morons!

Three, you can leave him on in the background and still get something done.

My conceptualzation of the media today here MSNBC female anchors. It's exactly what it sounds like.

Ron Hardin   ·  April 22, 2008 03:17 PM

As I pointed out, lemming suicide is a myth. However, they have been known to fall into the sea:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemming

On occasion, and particularly in the case of the Norway lemmings in Scandinavia, large migrating groups will reach a cliff overlooking the ocean. They will stop until the urge to press on causes them to jump off the cliff and start swimming, sometimes to exhaustion and death. Lemmings are also often pushed into the sea as more and more lemmings arrive at the shore.
But it's not suicide, it's an urge to migrate.

As to the cartoon, it's old, and had nothing to do with Hillary. I'd have to throw in Obama, and why should I do any work for his campaign?

Eric Scheie   ·  April 22, 2008 03:27 PM

"...try making lemmingade."

GROAN!

joated   ·  April 22, 2008 05:14 PM

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