The rhetorical use of metaphors by President Barack Obama for political purposes, particularly the "red lines" concerning Iran and Syria, is now well documented. An amusing commentary presented in the Danish Television show "Detektor" of March 2012 hosted by Thomas Buch-Andersen shows Obama's frequent use of another metaphor. This metaphor, "punching above your weight," derives from the sport of boxing, where boxers are divided into different weight classes. Therefore "punching above your weight" is fighting above what can objectively be regarded as normal and expected. The phrase was apparently coined by Douglas Hurd, the former British Foreign Minister, in a lecture on January 27, 1993 at the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House). He had been Foreign Secretary during the Gulf War, and at the time spoke of the UK as a medium-sized nation with some good troops; in other words troops who were better than might be expected from a nation the size of Britain. The...(Read Full Post)