The Ojai Post

i made the choice to be late for work on the day of Bill Clinton's first inauguration in 1993 and felt blessed to be able to listen to Maya Angelou read her poem, which she had written for the occasion .. thanks for reminding us of her message and eloquence .....

Enjoy the ride.

Bring on the Puppy and the Rookie

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: November 5, 2008
WASHINGTON
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

I walked over to the White House Tuesday night and leaned against the fence. How can such a lovely house make so many of its inhabitants nuts?

There was no U-Haul in the driveway. I don’t know if W. was inside talking to the portraits on the wall. Or if the portraits can vanish from their frames, as at Hogwarts Academy, to escape if W. is pestering them about his legacy.

The Obama girls, with their oodles of charm, will soon be moving in with their goldendoodle or some other fetching puppy, and they seem like the kind of kids who could have fun there, prowling around with their history-loving father.

I had been amazed during the campaign — not by the covert racism about Barack Obama and not by Hillary Clinton’s subtext when she insisted to superdelegates: “He can’t win.”

But I had been astonished by the overt willingness of some people who didn’t mind being quoted by name in The New York Times saying vile stuff, that a President Obama would turn the Rose Garden into a watermelon patch, that he’d have barbeques on the front lawn, that he’d make the White House the Black House.

Actually, the elegant and disciplined Obama, who is not descended from the central African-American experience but who has nonetheless embraced it and been embraced by it, has the chance to make the White House pristine again.

I grew up here, and I love all the monuments filled with the capital’s ghosts. I hate the thought that terrorists might target them again.

But the monuments have lost their luminescence in recent years.

How could the White House be classy when the Clintons were turning it into Motel 1600 for fund-raising, when Bill Clinton was using it for trysts with an intern and when he plunked a seven-seat hot tub with two Moto-Massager jets on the lawn?

How could the White House be inspiring when W. and Cheney were inside making torture and domestic spying legal, fooling Americans by cooking up warped evidence for war and scheming how to further enrich their buddies in the oil and gas industry?

How could the Lincoln Memorial — “With malice toward none; with charity for all” — be as moving if the black neighborhoods of a charming American city were left to drown while the president mountain-biked?

How can the National Archives, home of the Constitution, be as momentous if the president and vice president spend their days redacting the Constitution?

How can the black marble V of the Vietnam Memorial have power when those in power repeat the mistake of Vietnam?

How can the Capitol, where my dad proudly worked for so many years, hold its allure when the occupants have spent their days — and years — bickering and scoring petty political points instead of stopping White House chicanery and taking on risky big issues?

How can the F.D.R. Memorial along the Tidal Basin be an uplifting trip to the past when the bronze statue of five stooped men in a bread line and the words of F.D.R.’s second inaugural — “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad and ill-nourished” — evokes the depressing present?

Obama may be in over his head. Or he may be heading for his own monument one day.

His somber speech in the dark Chicago night was stark and simple and showed that he sees what he’s up against. There was a heaviness in his demeanor, as if he already had taken on the isolation and “splendid misery,” as Jefferson called it, of the office he’d won only moments before. Americans all over the place were jumping for joy, including the block I had been on in front of the White House, where they were singing: “Na, na, na, na. Hey, hey, hey. Goodbye.”

In the midst of such a phenomenal, fizzy victory overcoming so many doubts and crazy attacks and even his own middle name, Obama stood alone.

He rejected the Democratic kumbaya moment of having your broad coalition on stage with you, as he talked about how everyone would have to pull together and “resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.”

He professed “humility,” but we’d heard that before from W., and look what happened there.

Promising to also be president for those who opposed him, Obama quoted Lincoln, his political idol and the man who ended slavery: “We are not enemies, but friends — though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.”

There have been many awful mistakes made in this country. But now we have another chance.

As we start fresh with a constitutional law professor and senator from the Land of Lincoln, the Lincoln Memorial might be getting its gleam back.

I may have to celebrate by going over there and climbing up into Abe’s lap.

It’s a $50 fine. But it’d be worth it.

hey W! I want my money back..

http://www.youtube.com/v/FRBYlLqddZ8&hl=en&fs=1

Maureen, how nice of you to stop by!

.;-)

Great piece! I, too, was struck by the depth and soberness of Obama's speech last night. (Though climbing up on Abe's lap sounds like a great idea...)

Tanya -- I hope we all can enjoy the ride.

And Vicki, thanks for your comment -- I'd completely forgotten that poem was from Clinton's inauguration.

Best,
Leigh

Thank you Leigh. I jut now had a chance to read this beautiful poem.
It is a new morning...a new day...

What great writing by Maureen Dowd.
I might have missed it if she had not posted it here!

NYTimes.com

Thursday, November 6, 2008

The Search for the First Puppy

By Katharine Q. Seelye

The Obama family will be bringing a dog to the White House.

Now that Barack Obama has been elected president, he can start fulfilling his many campaign promises — including the one to his two daughters that when the election was over, regardless of the outcome, they would be cuddling up to a new dog.

As the whole world heard last night during his victory speech in Grant Park, Mr. Obama declared that his girls had “earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House.”

But as with most campaign promises, fulfilling this one may not be as simple as it sounds.

What kind of dog? Purebred or mutt? From a shelter or breeder? Puppy or adult? Get it now, or after the family settles in at the White House? Who will take care of it?

Let us know: What kind of dog do you think the Obamas should get?

The world, as evidenced by chatter and pictures flying around on the Internet today, has become captivated by the idea of a new First Puppy.

By now, the Obamas should know that everything they do, including picking a family pet, will be interpreted through a political prism.

Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, have been talking about a dog for a while.

He had said a year ago, while campaigning in Iowa, that his older daughter, Malia, now 10, had been investigating breeds and decided that because of her allergies, she wanted a goldendoodle, which is a cross between a golden retriever and poodle.

He said his daughter thought the goldendoodle “the optimal dog.”

This prompted lobbying by dog lovers and animal groups against a purebred. The People for Ethical Treatment of Animals wrote to the Obamas saying that a purebred would be “elitist.” The Best Friends Animal Society gathered more than 50,000 signatures to persuade them to adopt a dog instead of going to a breeder.

On Sept. 30, during an interview with Entertainment Tonight, the Obamas gave a few more details.

“We’re going to adopt a dog, I think,” said Mrs. Obama.

Mr. Obama then put in: “A rescue dog.”

The news sped around the dog portion of the blogosphere. Many readers were thrilled, seeing this as a sign that the Obamas were taking a populist approach. Many also assumed that the Obamas were getting a dog from a shelter, although they did not exactly say that.

One commenter on Digg Dialogg, for example, wrote that the Obamas planned to “adopt a rescue dog, instead of purchasing a puppy from a pet store or breeder.” The writer added: “The Obama family’s decision to adopt will help publicize the plight of rescue animals and could result in many pets being saved from euthanasia across the country.”

This kind of choice is fraught with political implications. When the Clintons were in the White House, Hillary Rodham Clinton, then first lady, squelched a suggestion that they acquire a golden retriever, saying it would send the wrong message.

“She said that with all the dogs orphaned and in shelters, they’d be criticized if they got a dog with a pedigree,” Dick Morris, a former pollster for the president, told The New York Times in 1997. They ended up with a chocolate Labrador, whom President Clinton named Buddy, a gift from a friend.

With Mr. Obama’s announcement last night about a puppy, tongues are wagging again about their intentions.

The idea of a puppy doesn’t necessarily comport with that of adopting a rescue dog from a shelter.

“Ideally, if you buy a pure-bred puppy, you go to a responsible breeder,” said Lisa Peterson, a spokeswoman for the American Kennel Club. “Sometimes puppies are available in pure-bred rescue.”

The kennel club held an online poll over the summer, during which more than 42,000 people voted for the Obamas to pick … a poodle! Despite their image as a bit prissy and high-maintenance, they also are perceived as smart and good family pets. During the 1970s and 1980s, poodles were the most popular breed in the country, but they were long ago eclipsed by Labrador retrievers.

Ms. Peterson said that given the Obama criteria for a hypoallergenic dog, Labs would shed too much. (Running close behind poodle in the poll was the Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier.)

DailyKos started its own online poll. Of more than 12,000 votes, the choice of “mutt” was winning, with 44 percent; “retriever” was the runner up, with 20 percent, and “terrier” came in at third, with 9 percent.

Today, the Humane Society of the United States issued a statement suggesting it intended to hold Mr. Obama to adoption:

“We are grateful to the Obama family for previously announcing they will rescue a dog — a real message of hope and change for all the dogs in shelters waiting for a loving home and those currently suffering in abusive puppy mills,” the statement said.

Whatever type of dog the Obamas choose, they also have to think about their timing.

In June, during an interview on Good Morning America, Mrs. Obama said they would get a dog next spring because by then they would be settled, no matter how the election turned out.

“The deal on dog is a year from now, because what we know about raising a dog is that you have to be pretty stable, so you don’t drive your dog crazy,” she said.

But a close parsing of Mr. Obama’s statement last night suggests the dog might be in hand sooner. It will be “coming with us to the White House,” he said.

Ms. Peterson of the kennel club said it made sense to wait until the family moved to Washington. If it’s a puppy, she said, it can then be acclimated while it is young to some of the unusual aspects of White House life, like a high degree of public exposure, multiple care-givers and frequent travel, including by helicopter.

“It’s not true that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” she said. “But there’s a window of up to 16 weeks of age for a puppy, when they are most impressionable and retain their training. Rules have to be established for a dog, like, no you can’t jump on the sofa in the Lincoln bedroom.”

In any case, Mr. Obama will find that dogs are sure-fire hits with the public and can come in handy when the chips are down.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said that she believed FDR was elected to an unprecedented fourth term because the public was captivated by his love for his little dog, Fala, a Scottish terrier; the president had sent a destroyer to pick him up after he had been left behind in the Aleutian Islands.

And it was sentimental attachment to Checkers, a cocker spaniel, that may have helped Richard Nixon keep his place on the Republican ticket during a scandal in 1952. “The kids love the dog,” Mr. Nixon had groused defiantly to the television cameras in what became known as the Checkers speech. “And we’re gonna keep it.”

Thanks, Leigh. Nice to make your acquaintance via this medium.

A New Morning in America? An old mourning in Afghanistan? A wedding is bombed killing many womem. An accident or a message?

Meatloaf. Nice. It's all about the money, isn't it? Not quite. There's always sex and power.

Read more at http://redbrownandblueparty.blogstream.com.

It seems as if the current White House dog is going ROGUE!!!:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/06/white-house-dog-bites-rep_n_141818.html