Bo, the new Checkers

About a month or so ago the President finally got his family that dog he promised them. Now that the news on this has died down, it is now time for me to throw my two cents in. Barry O was often quoted as stating before that he wanted a "hypo-allergenic" dog, and he wanted a dog from a shelter.

The only shelter this dog came from was one of the Kennedy Compounds.

That's right, Bo, the purebread Portuguese Water dog, was formerly a pet of Senator Ted Kennedy.

For those of you who have been living in a cave, Senator Ted Kennedy is an old and particularly powerful Democratic Senator from an old and particularly powerful political family (his cousin, Jack, maybe you've heard of him, he was President of the United States from 1961-1963).

So basically this dog is a political favor, a gift, expecting return.

It's very similar to a situation that occured 53 years ago, when Vice President Nixon was campaigning for he and President Eisenhower's second term. In addition to receiving a substantial amount of money from a prominent Texas political booster, Nixon received a puppy named Checkers.

So these situations are pretty darn similar. Prominent Executive office position holder receives puppy dog in exchange for what would appear to be a political favor. The kids loving the dog of course is always the reason that the dog cannot go. They've grown too attached.

So why is Obama receiving no crap at all for this, yet when this happened to Nixon, alot of prominent politicians (both sides of the aisle, if I remember correctly) called for Nixon's removal from the ticket. Eisenhower himself had to issue a speach saying something to the effect of "as for the dog, we've decided to keep him" -- referring of course to Nixon, and not Checkers.

So seriously. Try to have at least just a little bit of journalistic integrity on the matter. The not-from-a-shelter issue got moderately explored, but that was about it.

Is Obama really that much of a media darling?

I could start a rant here, but in possibly better judgement I am choosing against it.

-- Knuttel