Metaphor watch: Cliches get Obama in trouble again

As Matt Iglesias (channeling Paul Krugman) points out, the fact that the Obama administration used misleading, overused metaphors to describe the problems afflicting the American economy has a lot to do with the wide-spread but false perception that their efforts to revive the economy made it worse.

Here's Krugman: 

I still don’t know why the Obama administration was so quick to accept defeat in the war of ideas, but the fact is that it surrendered very early in the game. In early 2009, John Boehner, now the speaker of the House, was widely and rightly mocked for declaring that since families were suffering, the government should tighten its own belt. That’s Herbert Hoover economics, and it’s as wrong now as it was in the 1930s. But, in the 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama adopted exactly the same metaphor and began using it incessantly.

And earlier this week, the White House budget director declared: “There is an agreement that we should be reducing spending,” suggesting that his only quarrel with Republicans is over whether we should be cutting taxes, too. No wonder, then, that according to a new Pew Research Center poll, a majority of Americans see “not much difference” between Mr. Obama’s approach to the deficit and that of Republicans.        

Regarding Libya, the Obama administration is making the exact same kind of metaphorical mistake, according to veteran war correspondent Tom Ricks: 

I grow weary of talk of an "exit strategy." It is a canard and a false concept. Can anyone remember the last time there actually was an exit strategy going in that actually worked? Military actions aren't interstates.  

For a smart guy, President Obama sure steps in a lot of dumb cliches. 

Via the indispensable Andrew Sullivan.