This is the main headline: "NBCWSJ POLL: RUDY LOSES LEAD; NO FRONTRUNNER IN REPUBLICAN RACE"

This headline appears under a picture of an elephant, the traditional symbol of the Republican Party. Said elephant has a broken tusk and closed eye, seemingly ill or dead. The meaning is quite clear, that the Republican Party is ill or dead. Or, maybe, that elephants are in trouble, dead and dying, because the Republican Party's decision for a presidential nominee is in flux. Either way, the picture of the elephant in this context is a heart-tugging threat, much as stranded polar bears may have been used in global warming contexts.

However, as we know, contrasted with the very real threat of global warming, the Republican Party, infused with richer and richer members, with it's own private army being raised, trained and funded in Iraq at public expense, with oil companies becoming wealthier and wealthier as well as all other multinational corporations upon which the Republican Party depends for funds becoming more and more powerful, the Republican Party is not in any trouble as a party.

No matter how pathetic that elephant appears. I hope this misuse, this propaganda, arouses the ire of neocons the way distressed polar bears did. I'm not holding my breath, however.

Arf