Scooter, That Was a Haiku

Quote:  "Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning.  They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."  Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, in a letter to jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

Figure of Speech:  topothesia (toe poe THEE sia), description of an imaginary place.

First of all, aspens don't turn in clusters, though their roots do connect them.  Secondly, Scooter wrote before the leaves began to turn.  Thirdly, he isn't writing about the West at all.  He's really writing about ... uh, that's not our department.

For these reasons we'll slap on a label of topothesia, the Never-Never-Land of figures.

The topothesia falls under the heading of enargia, vivid description that makes an audience believe it's experiencing what the speaker portrays.  Just like pornography.  We call it sex enargia.

Snappy Answer:  "Here in prison, we, too, turn in clusters, because the guards make us."