The NYT needs editing almost as badly as I do. A reader writes, "Mixed metaphor alert in that Times article you posted:

'Of course, dancing around the subject allows gaps in conversation to spread conspicuously open, and leaves room for the white elephant to walk in, waving its hairy trunk, waiting for someone to acknowledge it.'

Isn't a 'white elephant' a useless gift that requires expensive upkeep? Why would the elephant in the room be white? And does it walk into the room through a door, or through those conspicuously open gaps in conversation?"