Analogies — betcha can't make just one!

Suppose you find yourself in the following situation. You're writing an article or giving a speech and have a point to make. The length of your article or speech is limited. You think that you might best be able to get your point across by using an analogy. However, after giving it some thought, you come up with not one, not two, not three, but four perfect analogies.

Do you:

A) include just the best one, in the interest of brevity?
B) include the best two, because repetition might help the point stick?
C) include the best three, on the theory that all good things come in threes?
D) include all four, because you're in love with the idea of yourself and overly enamored of your own analogy-making abilities?

See if you can guess how our beloved Mr. Friedman would answer that question, taking this section of his latest column as a hint:

"... our bailout of Detroit will be remembered as the equivalent of pouring billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the mail-order-catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into the CD music business on the eve of the birth of the iPod and iTunes. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into a book-store chain on the eve of the birth of Amazon.com and the Kindle. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into improving typewriters on the eve of the birth of the PC and the Internet."