All the presidents’ dogs
Presidents often own pets, in particular dogs. It humanizes them, makes them seem like regular guys. And of course, many of them just like dogs and have always had them.
And then there’s President Biden. What gives? The reports are that Biden’s dogs have been biters, and that Biden may have been mistreating them by hitting and kicking them. A Freedom of Information Act has been filed by Judicial Watch in order to find out. If it’s true, it’s certainly not a good sign about Biden – but only one of so very many.
You can see a history of presidential pets here. I think that, so far, the most famous one was FDR’s Fala, a Scottie he mentioned in this well-known speech, and is featured in a DC statue. It’s worth having a listen to FDR talking about Fala:
(An aside – whenever I see FDR during his days as president, it startles me that he looked so much like my grandmother.)
Trump was one of the rare presidents who didn’t have any pets, and was quite frank about the fact that, although it might be politically expedient to own one, he just didn’t want one.
Remember when Romney was the GOP nominee in 2012, and was accused of having mistreated a dog years earlier by putting it in a crate on the roof of his car? And LBJ made headlines by hoisting his beagle by the ears. You can read about it here, including LBJ’s tone-deaf comment, “”It does them good to let them yelp.” Yikes!
Another “drip, drip, drip” story about what a “bad man” Gropey Joe is. Would not have read anything like this 18 months ago…or before 2023 at all in the MSM.
Makes one wonder how long before he’s not a candidate any longer.
No pets now, but love animals and happy when people have them.
We are better humans to have them, and they do appreciate us.
I suspected long ago if his dogs are biting people he is abusing them.
What’s really startling about FDR is that he was only 63 when he died.
There was a reason Social Security didn’t kick in until 65 IIRC.
What was the reason SS didn’t kick in until 65?
Personally, I would think the most famous presidential dog was Nixon’s “Checkers”.
IIRC, Clinton and Obama both essentially got dogs when they entered the White House. Trump didn’t have one.
Most people around here have long been aware that Biden is truly a “nasty piece of work” (as my English mother would have said) depsite years and years of the media ludicrously cultivating a narrative that his just an amiable old timer who is some sort of healer and uniter. To people paying attention it’s been obvious that he’s long been a jerk, a bully, and a cad. So it’s no big surprise that he mistreats his dog to the point that the anxious creature evidently bites whomever gets within range.
The question now is, will this have a significant negative impact on his approval? By all rights it should. After all, 44.5% of US households have dogs. So it’s safe to say Americans generally like dogs and dislike abuse of them.
Actuarial tables, most folks died before 65 back then.
Another Article of Impeachment against Biden.
neo opines “I think that, so far, the most famous one was FDR’s Fala, a Scottie he mentioned in this well-known speech, and is featured in a DC statue.”
Speaking of well-known presidential speeches, let’s not forget Richard Nixon’s “Checkers Speech”, and, of course, his presidential cocker spaniel “Checkers”.
M J R; junior:
I thought about the Checkers speech, but he wasn’t president when he made it. It certainly was famous, though.
Actuarial tables, most folks died before 65 back then.
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If I’m reading the correct life table issued by the Census Bureau and reading it correctly, about 55% of those who reached their 21st birthday in 1922 could expect to reach their 65th birthday.
45% may only be “a lot” and not “most.”
Is there data for the cohort from 1932? Those were 21 in 1942 wouldn’t be a good data set.
What’s really startling about FDR is that he was only 63 when he died.
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Calvin Coolidge died at 60, Warren Harding at 58, Woodrow Wilson at 67 (after four years as an invalid), Theodore Roosevelt at 60, Lyndon Johnson at 64. You had 17 presidents holding office between 1841 and 1929 who died of natural causes; about five lived past 70 and none past 75.
Art Deco:
Perhaps what was meant was not that it was startling that he died at 63, but that he looked considerably older. At least, I think he looked older. In that video, if I had had to guess his age and didn’t know it and therefore was just relying on the way he looked, I would have guessed that he was close to 80.
About 65 as the minimum age for SS in the United States– It’s been blamed on the Germans.
“Germany became the first nation in the world to adopt an old-age social insurance program in 1889, designed by Germany’s Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck . . . . One persistent myth about the German program is that it adopted age 65 as the standard retirement age because that was Bismarck’s age. This myth is important because Germany was one of the models America looked to in designing its own Social Security plan; and the myth is that America adopted age 65 as the age for retirement benefits because this was the age adopted by Germany when they [sic] created their [sic] program. In fact, Germany initially set age 70 as the retirement age (and Bismarck himself was 74 at the time) and it was not until 27 years later (in 1916) that the age was lowered to 65. By that time, Bismarck had been dead for 18 years.”
Photo of the Iron Chancellor in his Pickelhaube at the link:
https://www.ssa.gov/history/ottob.html
Wellll, I missed junior’s (4:02 pm) mention of “Checkers” and I flubbed the fact that Nixon’s “Checkers Speech” took place when he was first running for Vice President (thanks, neo, for the memory jog), not when he was president many years later.
Bad M J R! *** It’s off to the re-education camps with me !! ***
Well old Joe already admitted he broke his foot after trying to pull his dog’s tail so it wouldn’t surprise me that he abused his animals in other ways. Its hard to imagine a greater difference from the “good old Joe” image that his handlers and the media sell to the public and the nasty, vindictive SOB that old Joe really appears to be.
Neo says, “Perhaps what was meant was not that it was startling that [FDR] died at 63, but that he looked considerably older.”
It’s often remarked that FDR looked pasty-faced and generally fragile at the Yalta Conference in early 1945; he was dead two months later. Here is an AP video clip of FDR with Churchill and Stalin at Yalta; there is no sound, but it’s not hard to see why he looks much older than 63. He’s wearing a heavy cape over his business suit, and at one point– contrary to his doctors’ advice– he smokes a cigarette and grimaces:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4JUbLZr2rk&ab_channel=APArchive
My understanding is that FDR was a tremendously popular president. And you can see why from that video clip. What a delivery in front of the camera! Bob Newhart might have studied that mastery of the dead pan.
I had forgotten about old Joe pulling his dog’s tail and then tripping and breaking his foot. Served him right.
neo said: Perhaps what was meant was not that it was startling that he died at 63, but that he looked considerably older.
Yes, that’s exactly what I meant. He looked all used up — decrepit.
Do those actuarial tables referred to above (e.g., people not making it to or past 65) include death in childhood or infancy? Failure to separate those out in lifespan calculations skews the maximum age downward. As a military historian specializing in antiquity, and the Bronze Age in particular, I am often at pains to point out that the statement to the effect that the average lifespan was only 40-45 years fails to take into account infant and childhood mortality rates, which have until fairly recently in history been quite high. The fact is, if you made it past your 10th birthday you could reasonably aspire to live to a biblical “three score years and 10” and even beyond — barring, of course, death attributable mishap, famine, war, disease, and such. This was also true of the medieval period.
Biden’s dogs, Commander and his predecessor, give us a clear vision of who/what Biden is; a mean, nasty, vicious creature posing as a benign entity.
Alsatians can be trained only when quite young. They make great police dogs! There is no hope for remedying either Old Joe or his vicious dogs. Commander bit eleven Secret Service agents in the WH over 3 months, and Old Joe did nothing but continue to let this vicious Alsatian beast, aka dog, have the free run of the family portion of the WH.
TommyJay:
Absolutely agree.
M J R:
🙂
IrishOtter49:
Well, I’m not a historian, but nowadays farming, logging, construction, mining, fishing, trucking, and railroad work are still very dangerous occupations, so I’m a bit skeptical about life expectancy in the good old days, preindustrial revolution, and even after industrialization prior to the adoption of industrial hygiene (IH) practices or IH as a science or practice.
Something about life in the state of nature being “short, brutal, and harsh.”
Unfortunately disease could include infection which president Coolidge found out first hand when his son died of one at 16.(Not sure how common that was back then but it still shows it could happen to anyone.) Basically he played tennis without wearing socks which caused a blister to form. It got infected and Cal Jr died of it.
om:
What I said: barring mishaps, accidents . . . etc. What I meant: one’s body was naturally programmed for a fair degree of longevity. What you allude to are occupational mishaps — death by misadventure, if you will. That’s different. If you were well-nourished and fate was kind to you otherwise in terms of not subjecting you to life-ending misadventure, you’d could do okay in the lifespan department. My great-grandmother, e.g., was born in Ireland — impoverished like most Irish — during the Great Famine but immigrated to America at a young age and died at 98. She worked hard and raised a family — and, it would seem, got enough to eat once she made it to our shores. By contrast her husband, my great-grandfather, also born in Ireland during the Famine, died young, age 56 — as a result of wounds gotten in the Civil War. Death by delayed misadventure cut short what might well have been a long life.
BidD: “Unfortunately disease could include infection which president. . . .”
I said that re disease.
Big D:
Coolidge Jr played the first tennis match ever on the new WH court. The heel blister broke, got infected with strep, no antibiotics then. Died in the WH.
Read Amity Shlaes’s book on Coolidge, titled simply “Coolidge”. A most enlightening read, as all of her books are..
IrishOtter49:
Unfortunately most people have to work in order to live and hard physical work breaks a body down. So discounting occupational causes of death is curious. I would posit that a lot more people had hard physical labor as a routine in the past, or today in the third world. What is the life expectancy disparity today in the third world vs the developed world? Or in Moscow/St. Petersburg vs Siberia?
Cicero:
I thoroughly enjoyed “Coolidge” by Amity Shlaes as well. IIRC he did not or run for another term because of the toll it had taken on his health. He also had reservations about Herbert Hoover. Coolige is a greatly underappreciated president.
In addition to physically abusing his dogs (which yanking a dogs tail clearly is; it’s painful and even a four year old can learn not to do that but not a septuagenarian Joe Biden) by his own admission he was apparently a weak “pack leader” (which is how dogs view their owners).
When trying to excuse his vicious dogs’ behavior (dogs that have bitten as many people as Major and Commander are categorized as vicious in any jurisdiction in the U.S.) he too, like KJP, tried to blame it on the WH environment. “You turn the corner and there are two people he doesn’t know and he moves to protect.”
Like it’s normal for a dog to take that kind of initiative. Funny how Clinton’s, Bush’s, and Obama’s dogs never felt the need to do that. No strangers were ever bitten by them. Yes, they weren’t German Shepherds but all dogs feel protective of their owners when the need arises.
Dogs don’t like to feel they have to be in charge. They want a confident “pack leader” they can rely on; they’re bred to be subordinates otherwise we couldn’t control them. When dogs feel they have to take charge they’re always nervous.
When I said I wouldn’t vote for Biden to walk my dogs I never knew how right I was.
And now a man who can’t be trusted to take charge of a dog is in charge of the country.
The Bidens should never be allowed to own dogs again. They have USSS protection for the rest of their lives. Wherever they live is a work site and people like them will be placing their protective details in danger if they have dogs.
Life Expectancy: I meet so many people who seem to think that because the life expectancy during some period in time was 45 years, or 65 years, etc. that people pretty much live to 45, or 65, or whenever and then keeled over.
I get the sense that everyone here understands life expectancy is based on averages.
The thing I find so puzzling about the situation with Commander is the fact that the Bidens are surrounded by trained protection dogs and their handlers. Experts! If they don’t have the time or ability to train Commander themselves they have people who can right there on site. Just sooo weird. Sick, really.
And frankly, teaching a dog not to bite is not rocket science.
I don’t think it’s too late for Commander to be retrained – or trained, as the case may be. And rehomed, please God. He is still a young dog. Maybe Larry Krohn or Tom Davis can step up to save him! And make a youtube demo out of it.
Cicero,
Alsatian? Are you British? Captain Max Von Stephanitz – the founder of the German Shepherd Dog breed was – you guessed it – a German!
Gotta give credit where credit is due, ya know.
Steve57,
Absolutely agree. The Bidens should never be allowed anywhere near a dog again. EVER.
Typical BS from FDR; he was no slouch when it came to raising taxes.
Yet when he filed his own taxes, you can bet he took advantage of every possible tax loophole allowable.
You can thank FDR (another elitist, “blue blood” politician who never held a real job in his entire life) for extending the Great Depression until the onset of WWII as well as literally inventing the federal administrative state.
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Our idiot president attacked the press for not carrying good news. He says the story is never boy saves dog in a lake, but always somebody pushed the dog in the lake. That’s bizarre. Did Joe forget about all the heartwarming boy saves dog stories that newspapers and TV love? Maybe dogs were on his mind. Maybe he threw one into a lake once. Maybe he’s been watching “Lassie” reruns.
I saw one of the videos of Biden kicking his dog and it looked to me more like he half-tripped over the dog when he was getting into a helicopter, but he could have been kicking it out of the way.
Was it Gail Collins who never wrote a column about Romney without mentioning Seamus, the dog on the roof? Romney didn’t turn out to be worth much, but that joke, if that’s what it was, got stale fast. It is surprising, though, that Sassenach Mitt gave his dog an Irish name and still managed to get elected (one time) in Massachusetts.
FDR didn’t look wrinkled and age-worn in that clip, but at times he did have a lost look, a tired look, an old look. Still, he was able to string words into sentences, whatever his physical or mental condition. He seemed especially old to young people like our parents or grandparents — he was just about the only president they’d known in their lifetime. Twelve years was a very long time.
Making the rounds on the internet: not only do more American households have dogs than cats, more American households have guns than cats. I don’t know if that is true.