If It Walks Like A Duck…

Run Like Hell

by nonamedufus

There’s an age-old saying that goes “if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be a duck”.  However, that saying pertains to ducks out of water.  The expression I find more interesting is “Be like a duck. Stay calm on the surface. But paddle like hell underneath”

There were a couple of examples of the latter quote just this week.  For example, Simon Cowell calmly announced he was leaving American Idol.  But you can bet he’s paddling like hell to launch his new American version of X Factor.

Rush Limbaugh calmly announced doctor’s found nothing after he was rushed to the hospital with heart problems.  But he must be paddling like hell coming to grips with what the rest of us already knew: the man doesn’t have a heart.

I’d be tender, I’d be gentle
And awful sentimental
Regarding love and art
I’d be friends with the sparrows
And the boy that shoots the arrows
If I only had a heart

NBC calmly announced they were taking Jay Leno out of the 10pm prime time slot and returning him to 11:35.  You can be sure that below the surface Leno, O’Brien and Fallon are paddling like hell to come out of this debacle with the best deal possible.  Unless one of them jumps networks, there’s no best deal for any of them.  Leno gets a half hour show and the other two each get pushed back an hour.  Although all three might be able to renegotiate their contracts.  So you see all that mad paddling may pay off after all.

The biggest news of all this week came from Fox News.  You remember them: the pariah of the Obama Oval Office.  They announced they’d hired Sarah Palin to a multi-year contract as a “commentator”, where she’ll be keeping company with fellow former politicos like Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich et al.

Palin demonstrates job interview technique

Yep, the politician who’s had a love-hate relationship with what she calls the “gotchya media” has got us by the short and curlies.  Up until now she’s been pushing her political agenda – read run for the White House in 2012 – via a book tour, a Facebook page and Twitter.  Now, she’ll be book-ending Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly.  And below the surface?  I don’t think she”ll need to paddle like hell.  If the past is any indication, she doesn’t have a left-wing bone in her body.  She’ll be a right-wing darling, going around in circles.

For more interpretations of “surface” head on over t0 Theme Thursday tomorrow.  I’m a day ahead because we Canadians are always early, eh?