“‘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.‘” So it seems Hillary Clinton, the erstwhile author of Dear Socks, Dear Buddy, apparently kicked Socks to the curb once the White House days were over. “Hillary’s insistence that we follow her example in pet ownership, when she really should be on Cat Fancy’s Most Wanted List, makes her a tiresome bore.” Well, it’s not exactly the silver bullet rival campaigns are looking for (I mean, the Clintons may abandon their pets, but Republicans seem to torture and/or eviscerate them), but it is rather sad.
2 thoughts on “Discarded Socks.”
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Wow, this seems a little… much. Even for Clinton critics. As it happens, I know Betty Currie to be a caring and good person, and I’m sure has provided a wonderful home for Socks (a curious guy who I also know).
The cat hung out right by Betty’s desk outside the Oval Office for eight years. She developed an attachment to the little guy. If anything, it was a kind gesture on the part of the Clinton’s rather than some cold maneuver to de-cat-ify themselves.
Really, isn’t this stretching the limits of political calculation and commentary?
Well, I’d say it’s getting there, but Dear Socks, Dear Buddy (“Being Clinton, she also lectured readers that pets are an ‘adoption instead of an acquisition‘”) puts it into fair play. It may seem like a cheap shot, but, for better or worse, Clinton explicitly used Socks (and Buddy) to try to warm up her image.
Besides, if she plays it right, it just sets her up for a Fala moment. FDR, 1944: “These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. [laughter] Well, of course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family doesn’t resent attacks — but Fala does resent them. [laughter] You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer back to find him — at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or 20 million dollars — his Scotch soul was furious. [laughter] He has not been the same dog since! [laughter] I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself — such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself as indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent, to object to libelous statements about my dog [laughter].“