So there shouldn’t be a statue of Roosevelt’s dog Fala at the FDR memorial in Washington D.C.? We should never have seen any photos of Nixon’s dog Checkers? LBJ should have pretended he never even heard of dogs instead of having a photo-op with his beagles? George Bush Sr. had Millie and his son had her offspring Spot. The Clintons had Socks and Buddy, and even George Washington had Polly, a parrot.
Juat about every president had pets except Chester A. Arthur, Millard Fillmore (who was a founding member and President of the Buffalo, NY American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and Franklin Pierce. Granted some were a little unusual: John Quincy Adams had a pet alligator and some silkworms, James Buchanan had a whole herd of elephants, and a number of presidents had various farm animals as pets as well as snakes, small rodents, birds, raccoons, a bobcat and a possum. There is even a Presidential Pets Museum
I think the Obama’s new dog is a real cutie. I suspect the girls are absolutely delighted, and I think that sometimes good news can be a pleasant thing to open up the paper to in the morning. It also shows the Obamas as a typical all-American family, with Mr. Obama being a man who keeps his word.
Americans treat their pets like family members. Why shouldn’t we see that the president is like the rest of us?