When President Bush signed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act into law on Wednesday, a news release said that Rep. Denny Rehberg called the "landmark legislation a 'literal breath of fresh air.'" That may be the only fresh air this bill generates.

My brother the English teacher collects what he call "literallies" from student papers and newspapers and occasionally sends them along to me. My two favorites, of those I recall, were one about the battleship gun crew that "literally stuck to its guns" and one about two track stars who raced down the homestretch "literally joined at the hip." Naturally, I sent my brother a personal favorite from the Gazette by a letter writer who said a public official who had "literally been caught with his proverbial pants down."

Shouldn't proverbs wear suspenders?