the cart or the horse?

[Jonathan Lighter]

The full context showed she's an Obama supporter but a media derider.

And as we all know, the "horse" in such situations is always lost
without ....

JL
On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 12:54 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: the cart or the horse?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This is actually kind of interesting for two reasons. In this
> particular instance, the media is being blamed for getting their
> priorities screwed up. Yet, for most right-wing commentators,
> particularly Glenn Beck, Obama's priorities may well be described as
> "putting the cart before the horse", as they want him to be agonizing
> over global issues rather than playing golf and paying attention to
> college basketball. And yet another group of conservatives (e.g., a
> column in the lunatic Washington Examiner) things that it's the
> critics who got the cart before the horse--since the critics already
> believe that Obama is a horrible president, shouldn't they be glad
> that he's immersed in golf and basketball instead of "screwing up"
> international developments?
>
> The whole media preoccupation with Obama's basketball picks is quite
> laughable and the viewer's sentiment quite understandable. But, in the
> light of other interpretations of these events, is it any wonder that
> his metaphor does not map "correctly"?
>
> VS-)
>
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 12:00 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > A CNN viewer scolds that by interrupting coverage of Japan and Libya to
> > report on President Obama's sports picks, the network is "putting the
> cart
> > before the horse."
> >
> > She unmistakably means "granting priority to the wrong thing."
> >
> > To non-native speakers of Inglish like me, to "put the cart before the
> > horse" means to do or to reason about two things, foolishly or
> illogically,
> > in the reverse order.
> >
> > JL
>
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