HBO Analogies

This might be my new all-time favorite, from Barron YoungSmith at The Plank:

Ted Stevens predates the State of Alaska. In 1953, he drove to Alaska Territory in a Buick, and--like a modern Al Swearingen--he built himself into a local luminary, successfully lobbied Congress to make Alaska a state, and then used his position on the Senate Appropriations Committee to transform himself into a patronage-distributing warlord.

Another journalist quoted by YoungSmith calls Stevens "a frontier fertility god." YoungSmith also calls Stevens "a dying breed of primordial American, laid low by the encroachment of ethics, rules, and civilization."

When all of the journalistic references to The Sopranos are replaced by allusions to Deadwood or The Wire, then we'll know that we've turned a corner in our culture.