"He may be a _____, but he's our _____"

[Mark Mandel]

To which I'll add "cactus" in Lois McMaster Bujold's fantasy novel _Paladin
of Souls_. From memory:

"His father's a real cactus: dry, spiny, will hurt your fingers."
"Yes, but he's our cactus now."

m a m

On 8/4/07, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>
> snowclone alert!  in the first 40 google webhits for {"he may be a *
> but he's our"} i get 14 different fillers for
>    He may be a X, but he's our X
> (in addition to versions of "son of a bitch"):
>    jackass. bastard (one hit attributing this to FDR, of Somoza),
> fool, crook, jerk, lunatic, monster, scorpion, swine, terrorist,
> sleazebucket, scumbag, butcher, devil
>
>
>

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