Senator Harry Reid’s comparison between Republican opposition to healthcare and slavery has already been criticized for the last week or so extensively. Some African-Americans felt that comparing healthcare reform to abolishing slavery was inaccurate and downplayed the horrors of slavery. Republicans took offense since it was the Republican Party that led the way to abolition, and many southern Democrats obstructed civil rights bills of the last century. When an analogy becomes a source of criticism for the point someone is trying to make, then it is a bad analogy. Harry Reid learned this.
Then along comes Rep. Michele Bachmann. At a “Code Red” rally against the health care bill, Bachmann invoked the charge of the light brigade as a comparison to the zeal of the health care reform opponents. The problem is the light brigade was slaughtered. I do not think that Bachmann is suggesting that health care opponents go down to defeat as martyrs. Once again, a bad analogy is born. It seems that our Congressional representatives feel compelled to say anything because they do not want to sit quietly on the sidelines.
