The Obama Dog Blog

Nicolle Wallace: What Obama Can Learn From Mickey Rourke

Mickey Rourke and Loki at the 2008 Venice Film Festival.  AFP/Getty Images.

I have never agreed with anything former Bush assistant and McCain-Palin campaign senior advisor, Nicholle Wallace, has said, until now.

Watch the video of Mickey Rourke accepting his Golden Globe for Best Actor in The Wrestler.  He thanks his dogs, both living and dead, with the greatest sincerity.

Via The Daily Beast.

Dogs Are Better Than Prozac, Really

A Washington Times editorial advises President-elect Barack Obama to get his dog ASAP.  Not for the girls, but because of the "soaring expectations for an incoming president who will take over daunting challenges on Jan. 20" might be a little stressful.

It turns out that a recent study in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine found that dogs really are better than Prozac:

Dogs are more effective than the antidepressant Prozac in reducing stress, lowering blood pressure, slowing heart rate, and relaxing muscles much more rapidly than pills. Dogs can accomplish this medicine by just being close to a person for as little as five minutes, while prescription medications can take weeks to work.

The research also showed that dog owners visit their doctors less often and are more physically active than non-dog owners. Elderly persons who have dogs are four times less likely to get depression.

According to University of British Columbia professor and author Stanley Coren, "The data is absolutely unambiguous. This actually works better than having a loved one next to you."

(full article)

No offense, Michelle.  You two look pretty comfortable together, but how can you compete with puppy data like that?

Photo of unknown woman is an albumen print by J.P. Vail ca. 1875 from the George Eastman House collection on flickr.  She reminded me of a young Mary Todd Lincoln. 

Dog Whistle Politics: Obama Picks Shinseki as Secretary of Veterans Affairs

The Atlantic's, James Fallows lauds Obama's choice and execution:

"As for the other symbolic element -- that Obama is elevating the man who was right, when Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, et al were so catastrophically wrong -- that is something that neither Obama nor anyone around him need say out loud, ever. The nomination is like a hyper-precision missile, or what is known in politics as a 'dog whistle.' The people for whom this is a complete slap in the face don't need to be told that. They know -- and know that others know it too. So do the people for whom it is vindication. And all without Obama descending for one second from his bring-us-together higher plane.

The artistry here is remarkable. Along with the inspired nature of this choice."

I don't think his First Puppy will mind this frequency.  Pitch perfect.

Make Us Love You Again, Mr. President (Bush)

Joel Stein of the LA Times offers President Bush some tips on juicing his approval ratings before he leaves office, including...

"Adopt a puppy from the shelter: It's beyond me why you didn't do this the moment the Iraq war went bad. If you're on TV with the cockerdoodle puppy you pardoned from death in some dog pound, Brian Williams can blather on about Muqtada Sadr all he wants but no one will hear a word because they'll be staring at the adorable puppy. Make sure the press pool gets lots of B-roll of said puppy looking sad in a cage to run against shots of you and Sparky rolling around together in the Rose Garden."

Does Obama Owe Latinos a Chihuahua in the White House?

Esther J. Cepeda argues her case.

Photo credit: Snelvis's flickr site.

Bill Kristol Undone By Puppy Moment

I finally had a chance to read William Kristol's NYT November 10, 2008 op-ed, "GOP Dog Days?"  It's hilarious (and somewhat disturbing) that on election night he truly believed that...

"This year’s exit polls suggested a partisan shift but no ideological realignment...In other words, this was a good Democratic year, but it is still a center-right country. Conservatives and the Republican Party will have a real chance for a comeback — unless the skills of the new president turn what was primarily an anti-Bush vote into the basis for a new liberal governing era."

Then came the Puppy Moment, when the President elect told his daughters, "You have earned that new puppy that is coming with us to the White House."  And Kristol writes:

"I gulped.

Not out of my deep affection for dogs, fond of them though I am. But because while we’ve all known that Obama is a very skillful politician, he hasn’t until now been a particularly empathetic one. Competence plus warmth is a pretty potent combination. Suddenly visions of the two great modern realigning presidents — Franklin Roosevelt (with his Scottish terrier Fala) and Ronald Reagan (with his Cavalier King Charles spaniel Rex) — flashed before my eyes. Maybe a realignment could be coming."

FDR and Fala in the Oval Study, December 20, 1941 via The National Archives

Ronald and Nancy Reagan take a stroll with Rex, AP photo 1986 via USA Today

Kristol is rocked even more by President-elect Obama's first press conference when he discusses the First Puppy issue...

"Here, in a few sentences, Obama did the following: He deepened his bond with every dog lover in America. He identified with every household that’s tried to figure out what kind of dog to get. He touched every parent with a kid allergic to pets. He showed compassion by preferring a dog from a shelter. And he demonstrated a dry and slightly politically incorrect wit by commenting that 'a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me.' "

Finally, his delusions of center-right voters swinging the conservatives back into office are shattered...

"It could be a tough four or eight years for conservatives."

His advice...

"It wouldn’t hurt for Governors Sarah Palin, Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal and the other possible 2012 G.O.P. nominees to begin bringing some puppies home for their kids."

My advice:  Bill, tell your protégé, Sarah Palin, to stop being photographed with bloody, dead animals.

Read Kristol's full article here.

Scandal! Obama Breaks Puppy Promise!

Gawker reports on the President-elects parsing:

Did you think That One would need to be sworn in before he started breaking promises, to children, in front of TV cameras? It was all right there in front of Steve Kroft's face on 60 Minutes tonight, but he just smiled, from the tank. The "emotive" Associated Press, though, noticed Obama changed his tune on the show: The president-elect promised his daughters in his victory speech that a new puppy was "coming with us to the White House." Yet all of a sudden on 60 Minutes it's coming only after Obama gets "settled" in the White House — "late winter, early spring." Watch hope get sucker-punched, after the jump.

It took Obama less than two weeks to change his puppy promise date by several months. A barking outrage! Not that the lapdogs in the Main Stream Media will sniff out the truth. But Roger Ailes will surely sic his Fox News hounds all over this story, and getting caught in a lie this early is bound to dog Obama somehow. Maybe it's time fur a landmark speech on pet-White House relations?"

Maureen Dowd Can't Wait

On November 6, 2008 she writes her op-ed "Bring on the Puppy and the Rookie."

"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."

Will her sentimental optimism last?