It's going to be a long fifteen months until Bush leaves the White House, in all likelihood to be replaced by Senator Clinton. The right's strategy of slime all the time is going to make it particularly exhausting. Their plan is clearly to attack ferociously over anything - there is nothing too juvenile, too inaccurate nor too irrelevant for them to use.
Today's craziness come from twisting an old story about Chelsea Clinton's pet cat, Socks. The London based Timesonline wrote:
"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..."
The article quoted the odious Caitlin Flanagan, the Phyllis Schlafly wannabe,
"In the annals of human evil, off-loading a pet is nowhere near the top of the list. But neither is it dead last, and it is especially galling when said pet has been deployed for years as an all-purpose character witness."
It's a story that was widely reported on at the time.(NY Times, Jet) As Hillary said, Socks "despised Buddy from first sight, instantly and forever" Buddy of course is the dog the Clintons got in 1997. Bill Clinton reported that he had done better with the Israelis and Palestinians than he had with the two pets. It was obvious that they could not take both animals with them to a smaller, less well-staffed house. Socks had spent hundreds of hours curled up on the top of Betty Currie's desk, and it seemed reasonable to all that they would leave Socks with the cat-loving Currie. (As of last summer, Socks was still happily living with the Currie's)
Yet the wing-nuts and truth have never been securely attached. Vox Popoli, who call himself an "East Asian scientist" said Clinton's behavior was "pretty cold. Not as cold" as eating the cat "as I had assumed she had." A commenter at bluecrabboulevard cries that "someone needs to keep this story [sic] alive." The loving Don Surber wrote "Well that's a better fate than Buddy the Labrador fared. He was run over by a car shortly after the Clintonians left the White House." Never mind that neither of the Clinton's was at home that evening, when an employee let the dog out. If you need more vile Republican bile, please see the links at the invaluable memeorandum.
Did I mention that Romney put his dog in a kennel on the roof of his car on family vacations? And How about Judi Nathan Giuliani,
"a former saleswoman for surgical staplers - a profession that involves demonstrations of how well the product works during unnecessary surgery on dogs"..." a procedure "which usually ends badly for the dog in question."
I honestly don't want the longevity of Clinton's Socks, nor of Romney's dog Seamus, to be a factor in the way we choose our next President. But I certainly don't think that we should allow twisted stories about Clinton's Cat to be a leading topic in the blogosphere either. If the nation needs to focus on a candidates relationship with domestic animals, let's go with the always dramatic Judi Gi.
Comments