Mythology Alert
James Taranto, of the Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Web Today crafted an interesting sentence today.
Without meaning to, they have painted a misleadingly Pollyannaish picture of Iraq, and that's the wrong way to counter the liberal media's misleadingly Cassandrian one.Presuming Taranto’s intent was to compare the overly optimistic picture of some on the right (the misleadingly Pollyannaish) with the overly pessimistic picture of some the left (the misleadingly Cassandrian), he should brush up on his mythology. His comparison misses the mark on two counts.
First, all of Cassandra’s prophecies came true. I am certain Taranto did not mean to attribute this ability to his liberal colleagues. Second, Cassandra was cursed so that no one would believe her true forecasts. I’m not sure how one would counter a Cassandrian prophesy - by making people believe a truthful forecast?
I’d respectfully suggest that replacing the Cassandra reference with an Al Gorean climate forecast would be both more accurate and more appropriate for Taranto’s target audience.
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Really, he missed the mark on THREE counts. By saying "Pollyannaish" I suppose he meant to indicate that he thought they were overly optimistic, perhaps even naively optimistic.
However, while being agressively optimistic, Pollyanna was ALWAYS correct!
I'm not sure his sentence works in any way at all since he's using references to correctly optimistic Pollyanna and accurately pessamistic Cassandra!
Still, it was nice to see Pollyanna mentioned in a contemporary piece. Its actually a lovely book.