Sorry ... but for some reason this bit from the Politics Weblog resonated with me:

A review of a new translation of the "Aeneid" in the current New Republic (subscription only) nicely illustrates the obsessions of academia. University of Pennsylvania classicist Emily Wilson spends most of her review commenting on the translator's success in conveying the subtleties of Virgil's epic poem, but she can't help breaking into her analysis with the occasional comment on President Bush's Iraq policy.

Thus this passages from her review: "At this moment in American history, we are all conscious that imperialism has a price. President Bush, who was certainly speaking without Virgil in mind . . . " Or this: "This is perhaps the most disturbing end of any great epic poem. You could say, with Bush, that Aeneas is simply adapting to the danger posed by Turnus, just as the president's administration 'is taking new steps to help secure Baghdad, and constantly adjusting our tactics across the country to meet the changing threat.'"

The image that comes to mind in reading passages such as these, so clumsily inserted in a commentary on a Latin epic poem, is that of Dr. Strangeglove, who just can't get his restless arm to stay down.

... just as political commentary on the Classics list invariably leads to Dr Strangelovesque 'blowups' ...