Speaking on the Chris Matthews show this morning on the topic of Dick Cheney’s persistence in the face of media criticism, the Washington Post’s David Ignatius says Cheney ‘is in the fight until the last dog dies.’ What a horribly odd and sad thing to say. I’m not familiar with this idiom, but assume it’s an extension of the equally distasteful ‘a dog in the fight.’ Indirectly equating the war to a dog fight has unpleasant implication about both the nature of the participants and the inevitability of the outcome. I don’t think Ignatius is intending to own this analogy himself but instead is trying to ascribe the embedded slur to Cheney. Of the vice-president’s many faults, I’d like to hope that viewing the young soldiers he bears the responsibility for killing and maiming as fighting dogs is not one.
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