Can Frodo save Iraq?

Sen. Rick Santorum thinks the war is distracting the "Eye of Mordor." But we really want to know your fantastical literary metaphors for the war in Iraq!

Published October 18, 2006 8:41PM (EDT)

We were riveted by the news that Rick Santorum, Republican senator and alleged Tolkien fan, sees the war in Iraq as really a ... distraction for the fiery eye of the evil Sauron.

"As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else," Santorum told the Bucks County Courier Times. "It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States."

It's a very, very inspired reading of Tolkien by Santorum (an anagram, a Salon staffer eerily points out, for "Mt. Sauron"!). But something tells us that you, dear Salon reader, will have even better ones of your own. So we ask: What Tolkien metaphors do you see in the war in Iraq? Or, for that matter, what literary metaphors of any kind do you see in our three and a half year odyssey?

Post your thoughts to the Comments section below, and we'll spotlight the very best ones in Thursday's Salon.


By Salon Staff

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