President Obama called unemployed people "sparks waiting to be lit," whose ignition can set the economy ablaze. Then he said that they have "talent to be tapped."
This one bothered me because an unlit spark is a non-entity. Obama's effort to praise the value of these "churning" workers presents them as dumb flakes of antimatter. But then once these workers' productivity gets harnessed, you have a crackling fire, which is usually understood to be a destructive force.
The comparision harkened back to Bush 41's even vaguer "thousand points of light." These are American volunteer organizations with inspirational value. Praising volunteers is a pretty limp gesture for the leader of the free world, but it became his favorite slogan.
So both presidents recognize flickering particles of national importance. Sparks have thermal (economic?) value, while points of light are merely dazzling, inspiring, or disorienting.
Voters, our great nation in the year 2011 is a strobe light, a roman candle, a cornfield lit by fireflies, a supernova, the Burning Man playa, and a refracting disco ball. My opponent characterizes it as an Arizona wildfire, a box of strike-anywhere matches, and a recently-blowtorched saucepan of Bananas Foster.
