CNN’s Erin Burnett Just Compared U.S. to Tolkien’s Evil Eye of Sauron

During a serious discussion about intelligence on ISIS during CNN’s Erin Burnett Out Front Friday evening, host Erin Burnett decided to employ an unusual metaphor to make a point about U.S. “priorities.”

“I’m sort of thinking in The Lord of the Rings, you know, the Eye of Sauron is now on Syria and Iraq,” Burnett said, “but as a result it’s not looking anywhere else. It is not looking at Libya, it’s not looking at a lot of other places, it’s not looking there. How big of a risk is that?”

Her guest David Gergen didn’t miss a beat, saying, “That’s a really good question, Erin. It’s exactly what some of our friends in the Arab nations are asking: Are you guys only going after ISIS or are you going to look at the bigger threat?”

It is a good question, perhaps, just an interesting way to ask it.

If you call from the J.R.R. Tolkien books or the Peter Jackson films, when Frodo Baggins puts on the ring, it distracts the Eye of Sauron, which represents all that is evil in Middle Earth and typically sees all, allowing his compatriots to move unnoticed. So in this scenario, the U.S. is the evil Sauron and ISIS are the hobbits?

Watch video below, via CNN:

[Photo via screengrab]

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