Aesop seems to be a theme today for some reason … here’s the end of an item from the Huffington Post commenting on the Florida senate elections debates:

Thankfully, a commercial break intervened, but immediately afterwards, moderator Antonio Mora, news anchor for host station WFOR-TV, returned to the theme. That’s when Aesop made his cameo appearance.

“In making your run as an Independent, you changed some of the positions you had held as a Republican in the past. In one of Aesop’s fables, he talked about the bats and the beasts and the birds, and how the beasts and the birds were in a fight, and the bat wouldn’t pick a side. In the end, the moral of the story was that he who is neither one thing or another has no friends. Who are you now?”

Crist replied, “I am the same guy I’ve always been…a fiscal conservative and a social moderate,” then pivoted to attack Rubio for wanting to “overturn Roe v. Wade” and “putting…privatization (of Social Security) on the table….I am running against an extreme right wing candidate who believes in taking away women’s rights, punishing seniors…and that’s just not right.”

This is interesting insofar as bats make an appearance in another fable of Aesop … in the Townsend translation (via N.S. Gill):

A BAT who fell upon the ground and was caught by a Weasel pleaded to be spared his life. The Weasel refused, saying that he was by nature the enemy of all birds. The Bat assured him that he was not a bird, but a mouse, and thus was set free. Shortly afterwards the Bat again fell to the ground and was caught by another Weasel, whom he likewise entreated not to eat him. The Weasel said that he had a special hostility to mice. The Bat assured him that he was not a mouse, but a bat, and thus a second time escaped.

… with the concomitant moral: It is wise to turn circumstances to good account.

Not being all that interested in Florida politics, but wary of politicians in general, I’m not sure which ‘batty story’ would best apply …