The shutdown poll numbers for Republicans are dreadful. The media coverage, even from conservative opinion leaders, is even worse.

In fact, two weeks into the standoff, the real challenge for writers is coming up with sufficiently novel comparisons for the GOP ultras who started the whole thing: Even the most far-fetched analogies have already been spoken for.

Here's a brief guide:

Colonel Walter E. Kurtz

“‘They told me,' Martin Sheen’s Willard says to Marlon Brando’s Kurtz in Apocalypse Now at the end of a long journey up the river, ‘that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.’” -Ross Douthat, New York Times.

V.I. Lenin

“It’s a pure Leninist strategy — heighten the contradictions to help hasten the collapse they are certain is inevitable.” -Jonathan Chait, New York