Certified serious "Sports are a Metaphor for Society" writer Jonathan Mahler apparently believes that there's an analogy to be drawn between the Congressional debt limit debate and the Tigers/Angels foolishness in their last game, and he took to the pages of The New York Times to say so. The past four "Saw" movies have had less torturous paths to their final conclusions.

Mahler's done this before in book length, making the 1977 Yankees season a convoluted metaphor for New York City's summer of discontent that year in "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning."