The defense attorney for Scooter Libby in the Valerie Plame leak trial has just released a hand-written note, composed by Vice President Dick Cheney, about a meeting the Vice President had with Libby. The note says, in part,
"not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others."
One either sticks one's neck out (readying it for the axe) or one throws oneself into the meat grinder. Sticking one's neck into the meatgrinder is very difficult unless one either a. sticks one's head in first (in which case, having your neck in the meat grinder is the least on one's worries) b. sticks one's body in first (same difficulty as above) or c. first separates one's neck from one's head and one's body (why?). The Vice President should pick one metaphor and stick with it. This linguistic flip-flopping should not be tolerated among our political elite.
