Sarah Baxter in the Times of London reminds us about Socks the cat. Socks was a presidential pet from 1993 to 2001, at which point he was given to Betty Currie. In the course of her piece she refers to and quotes from Caitlin Flanagan’s article in The Atlantic called No Girlfriend of Mine — neither writer seems to like Mrs. Clinton very much. Flanagan:

Socks…did the impossible: He humanized the Clintons. Socks stood for Chelsea…and for something Hillary desperately wanted us to understand about herself: that no matter how powerful or successful she becomes, first and foremost, she’s a mom; that no matter how incomprehensible her marriage may appear to outsiders, at its deep center is the only imperishable bond a man and a woman can share — a child. Conveying these two simple facts during the long and punishing 1992 campaign had eluded Hillary, and by the time the family was crating up its belongings to move to the White House, even those of us who had helped punch their ticket thought they were odd ducks.

But then a group of photographers baited Socks with catnip outside the governor’s mansion in Little Rock, and the rest is history. They shot some adorable pictures, and by the next day Socks was a front-page cat. The vast group of Americans (schoolchildren, mothers, teachers, old folk, simpletons) who share a good-natured, apolitical enthusiasm for the particulars of White House domestic life — and who were suddenly high and dry with a first lady who didn’t bake cookies, a president with a trail of girlfriends, and a daughter who was rightly shielded from a vicious press — had finally, finally been given something to work with.

Hillary started taking Socks with her on personal appearances, and a cartoon version of him was installed on the White House Web site, so that children could take virtual tours of the building with Socks as their guide. And then, of course, there was Hillary’s crowd-pleaser, Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids’ Letters to the First Pets. The book showcases the way Hillary wanted to be seen as a first lady: not an aesthete like Jackie, not a shopaholic like Nancy, not a country-club dowager like Bar. Hillary wanted to be seen as warm, spontaneous to the point of being a little bit silly sometimes; someone who always has a twinkle in her eye whenever children are around.

The book is, perforce, cloying, super-cute, and pun-riddled, and it would stand today merely as a curio if Hillary had — for once in her life — avoided her characteristic flaw. If only she had resisted the urge to drift past the homey anecdotes and family photographs, everything would have been fine. But, Hillary being Hillary, she had to turn the book into a lecture on pet care, and the person whose shining example we should all follow was none other than Hillary herself.

In Dear Socks, Dear Buddy, we are hectored never to give away a pet, always to regard one as an “adoption instead of an acquisition,” and to be forever on guard for its physical safety (cold comfort to Buddy, who had barely sniffed his first Chappaqua crotch before the poor beast ran off and got killed by a car, as had the Clintons’ previous dog, the much-loved but equally ill-tended Zeke). Hillary tells us that the Clintons “didn’t take on the responsibility of our pets lightly,” and more than anything, the reader is left with a vivid impression of Socks’s central position in the heart of the Clinton family: When they arrived in Washington, they brought with them from Little Rock their “family traditions, favorite pictures, and personal mementos to make the White House feel more comfortable.”

But it was only when Socks appeared on the scene — bringing with him his “toy mouse” — that “this house became a home.” (Hillary’s literary exploitation of Socks continued long after she discarded him. On the second-to-last page of her memoir Living History, she offers a dreamy, after-the-ball portrait of her family savoring their last days in the White House: wandering down to the Children’s Garden one last time, Chelsea and Hillary admiring the handprints of former presidents’ grandchildren, Bill tossing the ball for Buddy, while Socks…“kept his distance.”)

Sarah Baxter wrote: “After years of loyal service at the White House, the black and white cat was dumped on Betty Currie, Bill Clinton’s personal secretary…Clinton’s treatment of Socks cuts to the heart of the questions about her candidacy. Is she too cold and calculating to win the presidency? Or does it signify political invincibility by showing she is willing to deploy every weapon to get what she wants?” Perhaps Ms. Baxter and Ms. Flanagan may find out the answers to those questions soon.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 21st, 2007 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Democrats, General, MSM, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.