'Pataphoric Sheep
Newt Gingrich needs to write gonzo science fiction.
The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods.
--- Newt Gingrich (or his publicist)
The main reason this quote caught my attention wasn't political, but poetic. Just a couple days before Newt's press release, I'd been reading about the 'pataphor. A 'pataphor is to a metaphor what a metaphor is to the real world: it takes the metaphor's once-removed commentary on reality and removes it even further, turning it into its own sur-reality in the literal sense of the word. Wikipedia offers the example of describing standing in line metaphorically as a chess game, then turning it into this 'pataphor:
Tom took a step closer to Alice and made a date for Friday night, checkmating. Rudy was furious at losing to Margaret so easily and dumped the board on the rose-colored quilt, stomping downstairs.
The behavior of Tom and Alice takes on a significance in the seemingly-disconnected world of Rudy and Margaret. Similarly, the mixed metaphors of Gingrich's press release explain media criticism of his position in terms of a post-apocalyptic world where mutant gun-toting anthropomorphic sheep take exception to being excluded from the cocktail parties of the last remnants of humanity huddled in their arcologies.