Dump The Cat
By Mitch Berg
Socks the cat prop is back in the news:
AS THE “first pet” of the Clinton era, Socks, the White House cat, allowed “chilly” Hillary Clinton to show a caring, maternal side as well as bringing joy to her daughter Chelsea. So where is Socks today?
Once the presidency was over, there was no room for Socks any more. After years of loyal service at the White House, the black and white cat was dumped on Betty Currie, Bill Clinton’s personal secretary, who also had an embarrassing clean-up role in the saga of his relationship with the intern Monica Lewinsky.
On the one hand, Sock should be thankful not to have ended up like Vince Foster, whose head Hillary personally stuffed into a civil war relic cannon and fired across the Potomac (or so I remember the story) [1].
On the other – what does this tell us about Hillary!?
Clinton has been boosting her prospects in the past week with some homespun references to her gender as part of a series of events with the theme Women Changing America, during which she chatted girlfriend-to-girlfriend and mom-to-mom with female voters.The softening of Clinton’s image seems to be working. Her chief strategist, Mark Penn, predicts that up to a quarter of Republican women will vote for her. She leads Democratic rivals in the polls by 26 points and is scooping up more donations to her war chest from Wall Street and defence contractors than any candidate from either party – an unmistakable indicator of who they think will win in 2008.
Clinton’s treatment of Socks cuts to the heart of the questions about her candidacy. Is she too cold and calculating to win the presidency? Or does it signify political invincibility by showing she is willing to deploy every weapon to get what she wants?
“In the annals of human evil, off-loading a pet is nowhere near the top of the list,” writes Caitlin Flanagan in the current issue of The Atlantic magazine. “But neither is it dead last, and it is especially galling when said pet has been deployed for years as an all-purpose character reference.”
Flanagan’s article, headed No Girlfriend of Mine, points out that Clinton wrote a crowd-pleas-ing book Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids’ Letters to the First Pets, in which she claimed that only with the arrival of Socks and his “toy mouse” did the White House “become a home”.
Someday, campaign to install our first cyborg female president will be taught as a case study in marketing classes worldwide.
[1] Joke, joke, joke. Relax.
October 22nd, 2007 at 8:12 am
And a sick joke at that.
Ya know, I have made it clear that I could not think of any reasonable scenario where I could vote for Hillary. In fact, If the current front runners were to get the endorsement, I would endorse, work for, and support, Rudy Gulianni.
But the Right’s rabid fear of her becoming President is more and more a reason why I should really take another look at her. It really makes my cringe at the thought, but wonderful sites like this make me realize she might just be OK.
Flash
October 22nd, 2007 at 8:32 am
rabid fear
Statement submitted without supporting evidence.
Derision <> rabid fear.
October 22nd, 2007 at 8:41 am
“”Statement submitted without supporting evidence.””
…if I should buy this piece of real estate as a very, very, very relaxing vacation home …or a safeguard against a Hillary Clinton administration…”
I could build a list, but you would claim them to be jokes or satire. But the preponderance of the evidence would suggest ‘rabid fear’
Flash
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:03 am
you would claim them to be jokes or satire.
And I’d be right!
But the preponderance of the evidence would suggest ‘rabid fear’
If a conservative says “hillary” in the woods, and no DFLer is there to hear him, is he still “rabidly afraid?”
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:45 am
No, it is only when they continue to flog on her ad nauseam that would lead one to believe there is a high level of concern on their part. I use the term ‘fear’ since it is a term that you all are very familiar with! It is #1 in the Rovian playbook. You forgot you left it at my house once. Did you need it back, or did they send you a fresh updated copy.
Flash
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Instead of chasing down a pussy, this must be the first time in history where a Clinton sent a pussy away.
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Flash-
Fear that Bush has put us on the path towards a theocratic dictatorship, fear that under Bush any American may be plucked off the streets and sent to a secret prison, fear that Bush’s inaction on Kyoto will DESTROY ALL LIFE ON OUR PLANET! Fear that Bush is changing America from a democracy to a plutocracy. . .
The only thing the left is not worried about is the presence of ten to thirty million unskilled foreign workers driving down the wages of American workers and muslim fanatics plotting epic terror attacks.
October 22nd, 2007 at 2:31 pm
they continue to flog on her ad nauseam
Quick question, Flash: there’s a rather prominent event coming up a year from next month.
Can you name it?
October 22nd, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Republican Concession Speech Day?
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:03 pm
The frying of the last garage keg of 2008?