karl sees himself as Moby Dick. Anyone want to take a crack at this?

[Philosoraptor]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush15aug15,0,3792208.story?coll=la-home-nation

Even Rove has joined in the game. On Monday, the day his resignation was formally announced, he ridiculed journalists who dubbed him "Bush's brain" and said they built him up to "diminish" the president's abilities. But in the same discussion with reporters aboard Air Force One, Rove boasted that his office was just 15 steps away from the Oval Office.

And in discussing the multifaceted struggle between the Democratic Congress and the Bush White House, Rove said, he is Moby Dick -- the mythic white whale at the center of Herman Melville's epic novel -- "and we've got three or four members of Congress who are trying to cast themselves in the part of Capt. Ahab."

Though he praised Bush and his leadership lavishly in other parts of the conversation with reporters, when Rove described Democrats as would-be captains of the whaling ship and himself as their quarry, there was no major role for Bush.

[Philosoraptor]

1. Is bush Ismael or Queeg Que?

[radfringe]

3. bush is

Captain Ahab in the last scene where he's been tangled in the ropes and dragged to the murky depths

just substitute tangled in the ropes to tangled in the lies

[Philosoraptor]

5. "Ye damned karl"!

[Selatius]

2. The Japanese use exposive-tipped harpoons to kill whales today

See how Moby Dick fares against modern weaponry.

[Philosoraptor]

4. Thar he blows!

One hopes he will face the same fate as Moby and gets pooned and drags Captain dubya down to Davey Jones.

[Selatius]

6. I can't help but think this is what Davey Jones looks like:

[saltpoint]

7. Rove as Moby-Dick, the great whale.

I can follow that as far as the analogy of the Bush administration as the PEQUOD, the wooden ship Ahab sailed out of New England for the far realms.

I can play along with the motley assemblage of sailors.

Not sure where Condi fits into this. A Pip in pumps?

Rove as the whale isn't working for me. Melville in part aimed for the amoral white nothingness of fate and Ahab's obsessional will just wasn't nearly enough. I get the power part. But Rove is the Undoer, the dark component behind the facade of cowboys and corruptos. Much more specifically evil than all-powerfullly amoral.

The rest of the analogy is as rickety as the PEQUOD, a word which means "DESTROYER."

Rove gets to play God, or a force beyond God actually, neither good nor evil, which can consume even the most determined sea captain, even the bravest, even the most resourceful and prepared.

I get that part.

But I'm not giving Karl Rove that part in the play. There's too much Loki in him.

[Buns_of_Fire]

8. "He breaches!" -- Cap'n Ahab, shortly before becoming Moby-ka-bob

http://www.wisegeek.com/why-do-whales-breach.htm

...whales might purposefully land directly on top of prey that otherwise they couldn't consume without getting bitten themselves. The forceful impact has been known to knock prey unconscious long enough for the whale to swallow it.

On edit: It often helps to put the excerpt in there before hitting "post"...

[spindoctor]

9. Well, he is certainly a big, fat, whale of of a dick swimming around in a sea of lies...

...and just like the character in the book, his reputation is build mostly in the crazy mind of a deranged leader.

Okay, Moby Rove it is.

[Burma Jones]

10. Somebody should have told him not to look in the mirror naked....

[sendero]

11. He's a dick all right..

... but not moby.

[radfringe]

12. all I can say about Rove being the great white whale is

this would be one whale where Green Peace wouldn't rush out to save...

[Philosoraptor]

13. Or he could be Dr. Frankenstein.

Whose creation comes back to destroy him.

[alphafemale]

14. Except that "Dick" can be flattened by an 11 yr old girl. nt

[1932]

15. Funny that he referenced Moby Dick. Remember this part of the book:

But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way - he can better answer than any one else. And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:

Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States

Whaling Voyage by one Ishmael

BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1260935

[Philosoraptor]

16. ..............

[Annces]

17. Mocha Dick would have taken a Rove ship

and crushed it to smithereens. The Bush people are trying to get rid of speed laws that protect Right Whales from being killed in the Eastern Seaboard.





http://www.drawger.com/bigfoot/?section=gallery&gallery_id=303&

Artist Randall Enos

[thegreatcause2]

18. Maybe I am real dumb

but I never understood Moby Dick. Although I know the Zeppelin song. Could someone clue in an honest, ignorant man?

[Annces]

20. He was a sperm whale

famous for wrecking whaling ships. Melville wrote a book about him that they made a movie from. Captain Ahab lost his leg to the whale. Ahab chased him around the seas to kill him. Ahab was the loser though.

[peekaloo]

19. He and Gannon loved shouting "Thar he blows" at the midnight meetings.

}(

[porphyrian]

21. He is a huge bloated white dick. - n/t

[warren pease]

22. Sharpen the flensing knives...

Unfortunately, to extend the metaphor, the US after Moby KKKarl is the coffin that Ishmael (us) clings to while waiting to die or be saved.

wp

[Javaman]

23. too easy. nt