[Carl Vehse]

Even the leftist Snopes had to admit that it was true what Hank Johnson said, although Snopes desperately tried to spindoctor his statement about Guam tipping over and capsizing into some kind of a metaphor:

Was Rep. Johnson really expressing concern that the addition of 8,000 Marines and their families to Guam would literally cause the island to become “so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize,” or was he engaging in a metaphor about concerns over the level of environmental degradation that might result from a sudden 14% increase in Guam’s population?....

Or perhaps Johnson was clumsily trying to express the notion that adding another 25,000 people to Guam would create an unsustainably large population (and thus the island would reach its “tipping point”).

[Redbob]

"Was Rep. Johnson really expressing concern... or was he engaging in a metaphor...?

I think it unlikely that Johnson would know what to use a metaphor...