presidential cats – Pain In The Bud

Pawtriotic Americats: Vote For Buddy!

Former President Buddy wants your vote as he makes another bid for president of the Americats.

Now that Buddy’s officially announced his candidacy to regain his rightful post as President of the Americats, his campaign is in full swing and it’s all-in on classic Americata and Americat imagery.

Buddy, who was narrowly defeated by Purrsident Joe Bitin’ in 2020, then banned from the social media platform Meower after claiming Los Gatos criminal gang was at the forefront of a conspiracy to deny him a second term, criticized his opponent’s age, record and culinary preferences as he took questions from reporters.

Asked by a reporter for Cat Broadcasting Corporation (CBS) how he would approach a rematch with Bitin’, Buddy said he’d take a paws-off approach.

“I don’t need to defeat Joe Bitin’,” Buddy said. “Time is doing it for me. He eats senior kibble. He needs little stairs just to get into the litter box. He thinks it’s 1992. I mean, come on.”

That prompted a reaction from CNN’s (Cat News Network) Panderson Pooper, who pointed out there are health concerns about the former president himself. Photos printed by the New York Lunchtimes showed Buddy on a golf course, his stomach jiggling as he teed off on a par three at New York’s Westchester Country Club.

Asked about his weight, the former president became incensed.

“For the millionth time, I am NOT fat! That’s pure meowscle!” he insisted. “I just look a little floofy because I’ve got a longer coat on my underside, a-and, and a prominent primordial pouch, which I like to call a warrior’s pouch because it exists to protect the vitals of true warrior felines. Like me, of course.”

Buddy visited the Iowa State Fair over the weekend, where he mingled with Americats, helped judge a dance competition, and chowed down on cheesesteaks, fried Oreos, fried turkey legs, fried chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers, chili, hot wings and ice cream. His campaign staff had to repeatedly redirect him away from food stalls and toward potential voters.

Buddy’s primary rival, Florida Gov. John DeSpamis, also worked the crowds at the Fair, but the two cats never came face to face.

Instead, Buddy turned to his own social media network to fire off messages critical of his rival, whom he calls Meatball John.

“Meatball is dead in the water, folks! Polling 40% behind me. Sad!” Buddy wrote. “If only he had stayed in his lane, I might have considered him for Secretary of Yums or put him in charge of toys. But that ship has sailed, so now Meatball will pad back down to Florida with his tail between his legs. Sad!”

Buddy’s nex scheduled campaign stop will take him to the New Hampshire State Fair, where his campaign staff faces a significant challenge in keeping him away from corn dogs, bacon sandwiches, roast turkey and his favorite, turkey fried in a crust of Flaming Hot Cheetos.

There Won’t Be A Cat In The White House Any Time Soon, Thanks To The Dog

First Lady Jill Biden says she hasn’t brought a cat into the White House as promised because the Biden family dog, Major, has been an aggressive biter lately.

First Lady Jill Biden generated hundreds of headlines late in 2020 and again earlier this year as she promised she and her husband would welcome a feline pet to the White House for the first time since the George W. Bush administration.

Since then we haven’t heard anything — until today’s edition of the New York Times, which includes the first sit-down interview with the First Lady since her husband took his oath of office back in January.

It turns out the Bidens did pick a cat, and that cat has been living with a foster family because the Bidens’ other family pet, Major the German Shepherd, has a bit of a biting problem.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki downplayed Major’s biting incidents, telling reporters he nipped White House staff twice, but emails obtained by the group Judicial Watch show Major’s biting isn’t so minor: In the first week of March, an internal Secret Service email said “an agent or officer has been bitten every day this week.” The dog also bit a visitor to the White House that same week, according to the email.

Since then there have been other incidents, and the pooch has been shuttled between the White House and Delaware, where he’s spent more time with trainers in an attempt to curb the bad behavior.

The president and First Lady didn’t want to subject their new cat to the stress of living with a bite-happy Husky, so the kitty remained in foster care. It seems the cat is now a “failed foster.”

“The cat is still being fostered with somebody who loves the cat,” Jill Biden told the Times. “I don’t even know whether I can get the cat back at this point.”

The Natural Order of Things — A brave and heroic cat executes a glorious karate kick to the face of a slobbering, clumsy dog, proving once again that felines are superior.

In related news, Buddy the Cat — whose track record of biting to get what he wants is second-to-none — volunteered himself to help solve Major’s behavioral issues.

“I’ll straighten him out right quick,” Buddy said, lifting a paw and flexing. “If my razor sharp claws, vicious fangs and intimidating size don’t deter him, my huge meowscles will. I guarantee he’ll want no part of this.”

Buddy the Cat: Handsome and Meowscular — Bud is not only smart and good looking, he also has huge meowscles and is known for his bravery

This Presidential Pet Stuff Just Gets Weirder And Weirder

Presidential cats have been the subject of protests and budget inquiries, starred in video games, and eaten from the leader of the free world’s table. Welcome to the weird history of White House cats!

Did you know there’s a Presidential Pet Museum? Or that protesters in India burned effigies of George W. Bush because they felt naming his cat India was “an insult” to their country?

Or that one Republican congressman was so incensed by Socks, the Clintons’ cat, that he wrote a letter demanding an accounting for how much taxpayer money was spent on postage to write back to Socks’ fans?

Screenshot_2020-11-29 socks-the-cat jpg (WEBP Image, 1000 × 658 pixels) — Catmander in Chief. I’ll see myself out now…

I did a little delving into the world of presidential pets after writing about president-elect Joe Biden’s plans to bring a cat to the White House along with his two dogs.

And man, it’s a weird world. To start with, the Presidential Pet Museum’s Andrew Hager told the New York Times he thinks Biden’s choice is subtly political.

“Maybe this is symbolic of Biden’s oft-repeated desire to unify the country,” he said. “I know that that’s kind of trite, but I’m very curious to see how this goes.”

That didn’t work out so well for Bill Clinton, whose cat Socks famously feuded with Buddy, the awesomely-named Labrador who was the Clinton family’s second pet.

“You know, I did better with the Arabs, the Palestinians and the Israelis than I’ve done with Socks and Buddy,” Clinton lamented during the final days of his presidency in 2001, just before his successor, George W. Bush, was about to take office.

Socks remains popular to this day, with a dedicated group of “Socks enthusiasts” who not only love the former White House cat, they raised more than $33,000 to finish and release a cancelled Super Nintendo game called Socks The Cat Rocks The Hill.

Yeah, Socks had his own game. It was apparently anticipated enough to lead to early reviews and previews in magazines at the time, and featured Socks repeatedly saving the world from nuclear apocalypse at the hands of — and I’m not joking here — “Arab terrorist felines,” bulldogs in Army helmets, and Ross Perot.

According to a preview in 1993’s Playthings magazine:

“In his video game debut, entitled ‘Socks Rocks the House,’ he will venture from the basement of the White House to the Oval Office to create havoc with the President’s allergies. Along the way, while the cat’s at play, Socks must push Millie the dog out the front door as well as avoid Arab terrorist felines.”

There’s a joke in there somewhere, but I value my life so I’ll restrain myself. In any case, the game was finally released in 2018, a quarter century after it was supposed to land on store shelves.

Screenshot_2020-11-29 GettyImages-456177796 jpg (WEBP Image, 1600 × 1176 pixels) — Scaled (82%) — As the president’s pet, Socks became the most famous feline on the planet.

India, the Bush family’s cat, was often overshadowed by the dogs. While First Lady Laura Bush was often photographed holding India, the president himself was frequently seen walking his pups on the White House grounds.

In July of 2004, a crowd in Kerala, India, gathered and condemned Bush for his choice of name for the cat, a wire service report noted at the time:

Members of the citizens group Prathikarana Vedi assembled before the Kerala assembly saying that Bush calling his cat India was an insult to the country.

“This is a disgrace to our great country and this has come from none other than US President George W. Bush,” said M.A. Latheef, president of the group. “He should make amends.”

It turns out India wasn’t named after the country: Bush’s daughter, Barbara, named the American shorthair after Ruben “El Indio” Sierra, a rightfielder who spent his early career with Bush’s Texas Rangers.

IndioCat — India, former presidential cat. (Wikimedia Commons.)

Screenshot_2020-11-29 Tyger [i e Tiger], White House cat — In this photo from the 1920s, US Navy Officer Benjamin Fink holds Tiger, President Calvin Coolidge’s cat. Tiger often rode around on the president’s shoulders in the White House. (Library of Congress)

Perhaps the greatest cat-lover among presidents was Abraham Lincoln, who once vented that one of his cats, Dixie, “is smarter than my whole cabinet! And furthermore, she doesn’t talk back!”

Lincoln “doted on his cats,” and to the horror and amusement of guests at a formal White House dinner the president fed Tabby, his other cat, from the table. When his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, expressed her embarrassment, the president shrugged it off.

“If the gold fork was good enough for [former President James] Buchanan,” Lincoln quipped, “I think it is good enough for Tabby.”

Screenshot_2020-11-29 Screen_Shot_2018-02-16_at_5 34 37_PM1-910x1024 png (PNG Image, 910 × 1024 pixels) — Scaled (94%) — Lincoln with Tabby.

Lincoln was known for doing his thinking with a cat in his lap, sitting silent while petting Tabby or Dixie and drifting into deep thought. U.S. Navy Admiral David Dixon Porter later wrote of watching Lincoln caring for a trio of stray kittens, which the president later left in the care of US military officers, along with specific orders to treat them well and make sure they were well-fed.

“It well illustrated the kindness of the man’s disposition,” Porter wrote, “and showed the childlike simplicity which was mingled with the grandeur of his nature.”