Brokering Peace In The
Cat ... Er, Doghouse
A week or so ago, the White House announced that Socks, the executive cat, had been given notice. He would not be a part of the Clinton White-House-In-Exile in Georgetown, but instead would be shipped off to the Virginia suburbs in the care of Betty Currie, the President's secretary.
You see, Socks and Buddy, the rambunctious President's equally-rambunctious Labrador retriever, have not been exactly bosom pals, and the Clintons feared that once the two were thrown together in the crackerbox confines of the family's $6 million Georgetown townhouse, the results would be -- well, cat-astrophic.
Someone had to go. A choice had to be made -- probably involving the photo-op specter of the manly former President taking a manly morning jog with his manly coterie of manly Secret Service agents through the historic D.C. suburb ...
... With his kittycat mincing along at his heel.
Not a manly picture. (Nor very likely, if you've ever tried to take a cat jogging.)
Socks got sacked.
But wait.
Bill Clinton is President until noon Jan. 20, and he apparently plans to run out the clock.
If the Mideast was a bust, well -- let's go to the tape. (Actually, the Associated Press):
''WASHINGTON (AP) -- Socks is not getting booted out of the first family, at least not yet.
''A decision about where the first cat will spend his days after President Clinton leaves the White House has not yet been made, White House spokesman Jake Siewert said Jan. 9 ...
''Clinton 'has worked very hard over the last couple years to do his best to reconcile Socks and Buddy,' Siewert said. 'He will keep at it. This is a family decision.' ''
I wish the President luck, but as any four-year-old will tell you, taming the West Bank is a piece of Easy-Bake Oven chocolate cake compared to bringing harmony to the cat ... ah, doghouse.
Cats and dogs don't get along.
And they don't get along in a way that makes Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak look like giddy newlyweds.
Watch any old Warner Brothers cartoon: Sylvester the Cat is ever and forever getting punched, pummeled, stomped, strangled and pulled bodily through knotholes in fence palings by some steroid-pumped bulldog. ''Peaceful coexistence'' is at least on the table in the Mideast; between cat and dog, it's not even in the supermarket.
And what if Clinton actually does get Socks and Buddy to the peace table? Exactly what is there to discuss?
Neither party will budge on the issue of Sacred Places, in this case the big maple in the front yard. It is as sacrosanct to the cat as a scratching post as it is to the dog as ... well, let's just say it's awfully important to the dog.
And division of territory? How about the flowerbed? Same song, second verse: A dog's pantry is a cat's potty.
Not a chance for compromise here. Cat can't understand why Dog doesn't present his prize T-bones at Madame's feet for her appreciation and undying thanks, instead of burying them out of sight and out of mind; Dog is at a complete loss as to why Cat can't just do his business over in the neighbor's front yard and be done with it, without all that prissy scratching and patting and backfilling and landscaping afterward.
Nope. It just isn't going to happen. The cultural gulf between feline and canine is far too wide.
Best for the President to hop Air Force One while it's still his, and head back to Jerusalem, where he might actually accomplish something.
