this, in a nutshell, demonstrates the good and bad tendencies of the new york times:

The trial underscores that neither defendant fully accepted what happened at the company. Mr. Lay testified that the collapse was largely caused by short sellers, critical articles in The Wall Street Journal, and a resulting panic in the marketplace.

But short selling, negative press and market concerns are issues that scores of companies deal with every year, without collapsing. Indeed, to some degree, Mr. Lay's argument was a bit like blaming a match for igniting a basement filled with gasoline. In this case, the accelerant was the poor condition of Enron's financial structure.

Good: the hilarious and evocative metaphor.

Bad: spelling out the relationship explicitly, just in case the reader is thrown for a loop by the brief foray into figurative language.