Obama treats Keystone as the political football he apparently thinks it is.

I like the football metaphor in the Time headline: "Obama Punts On Keystone Pipeline."

ADDED: Wikipedia has an article on "Political football." It quotes William Safire's "Political Dictionary" definition — "To thrust a social, national security, or otherwise ostensibly non-political matter into partisan politics" — and displays this 1889 cartoon satirizing the doings of the Benjamin Harrison administration:



The caption is: "What can I do when both parties insist on kicking?"

AND: The (unlinkable) OED traces the term back to 1833 (and I assume it's not what Americans call "football")

1833   Essex Standard (Colchester) 9 Nov.,   Out-generalled by every petty state that choses [sic] to make it worth its while to deceive us—the political football of Europe—England.

The second example has a mixed metaphor:

1841   Congressional Globe 30 Jan. 119/1   These lands were nothing but a bone of contention—a political football, bandied about first by one party and than the other.

That example makes me wonder not only about the origin of "bone of contention" but also "bandy."  "Bone of contention" is (obviously) something that people fight over the way dogs fight over a bone. But does "bandy" inject a third metaphor into the mix?

I was delighted to see that "bandy" began as a particular way of playing tennis, and that we no longer know what way it was. By the 1600s, there was a game called "bandy" (or "bandy-ball") "in which a small ball is driven to and fro over the ground, with bent club sticks, by two sides of players." That is, hockey. Here's a sentence from  "The Mill on Floss" (1860): "She's only a girl—she can't play at bandy."


The verb "bandy" means "To throw or strike (a ball) to and fro, as in the games of tennis and bandy. (Mostly with figurative reference.)" Here's an example from 1577: "Kingdoms..be no balles for me to bandie." That's the oldest definition. It's a dead metaphor. Here's how Boswell used it in "The Life of Johnson" (1767): 

His Majesty enquired if he was then writing any thing. He answered, he was not, for he had pretty well told the world what he knew, and must now read to acquire more knowledge. The King, as it should seem with a view to urge him to rely on his own stores as an original writer, and to continue his labours, then said, “I do not think you borrow much from any body.” Johnson said, he thought he had already done his part as a writer. “I should have thought so too, (said the King,) if you had not written so well.” — Johnson observed to me, upon this, that “No man could have paid a handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a King to pay. It was decisive.” When asked by another friend, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, whether he made any reply to this high compliment, he answered, “No, Sir. When the King had said it, it was to be so. It was not for me to bandy civilities with my Sovereign.” Perhaps no man who had spent his whole life in courts could have shewn a more nice and dignified sense of true politeness than Johnson did in this instance.