I pretty much avoid ALL political discussion here at Tarazet, saving any such angry stuff for my other blog. Tarazet is meant to be "politics free" except as it might occasionally pertain to our beloved pets. Tarazet is meant to be a fun place. So I'm sure the title of this post worried you some. Fear not, it's only to mention an article about a semi-regular to the NBC Today Show who discusses the candidates' dogs, and has a new book out I saw mentioned the other day. From the Miami Herald:
Mo Rocca is analyzing the 2004 election with a precision that would make Tim Russert or Jeff Greenfield proud. Only he's focusing on the dogs behind the candidates.First, Sen. John Kerry's German shepherd, Cym.
"A male dog named Kim and, worse yet, it's spelled C-Y-M? I mean, that's just not going to play in swing states like Missouri. Or Michigan? Hello, not! In the rust belt, do you think anyone's going to go for a male dog named Cym? To me, that's got wacky billionairess written all over it. It's got Teresa's paw prints.''
Next, President George W. Bush's Scottish terrier, Barney.
"The Scottie is likable, feisty, a little rash. It urinates on itself uncontrollably at times, and yet it's forgiven over and over again. Although we'll see how much can be forgiven on Nov. 2.''
Who is this earnest oddball with the rectangular glasses and enough TV jobs to keep your Tivo humming around the clock? Maybe you recognize him from NBC's Today, where he has become the person most likely to get belly laughs out of Katie Couric's floor staff.
His new book, All the Presidents' Pets (Crown, $22), deserves a genre all its own: the docu-satire. By placing real-life Washington players into absurd scenarios, it spins a wild and hilarious tale of who's really running the show in Washington.Hint: The true power brokers have four legs.
In Rocca's hilariously demented universe, Lyndon Johnson and his beagle, Him, discuss the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that resulted in the escalation of the Vietnam War.
The Cuban Missile Crisis is solved by a romance between Charlie, John F. Kennedy's terrier, and Pushinka, the dog given to Jacqueline Kennedy by Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev.
And in 1798, John Adams' bulldog and Thomas Jefferson's sheepdog try and fail to maintain a civil tone during Crossfire debate between Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.
The book's main character is Rocca himself, who -- and this part is fictional, but not that unlikely -- is hired by MSNBC to cover Bush's dog, Barney. The job lands him a seat inside the White House press briefing room, where he meets veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas, who leads him down a hidden tunnel and into a secret lair where she keeps the true history of the presidential pets.
And, of course, when I turn to the comics section of the paper, the first ones I read are Marmaduke and Garfield. And isn't everyones' favorite character in Peanuts, Snoopy?