Chamblee54

Michele Bachmann gave a speech at CPAC recently. Among other things, she talked about the care given to Bo Obama, @FDOTUS. Mrs. Bachmann, who is sometimes compared to a female dog, is taking a severe political risk in criticizing the Presidential dog.
In 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt was trying to win a war, and running for a fourth term as POTUS. His most trusted advisor was a Scottish Terrier named Fala. The Republicans made a mistake.
“On September 23, 1944, Roosevelt gave his famous “Fala speech” while campaigning in the 1944 presidential election. … . Late in the speech, Roosevelt addressed Republican charges that he had accidentally left Fala behind on the Aleutian Islands while on tour there and had sent a U.S. Navy destroyer to retrieve him at an exorbitant cost to the taxpayers:”
“These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family don’t resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I’d left him behind on an Aleutian island and had sent a destroyer back to find him — at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars — his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself … But I think I have a right to resent, to object, to libelous statements about my dog!”
Mr. Roosevelt won the election, and the war, but lost his life. Fala was in Warm Springs with him, and reportedly knew, before the doctors, that Mr. Roosevelt was not going to make it. Fala went to stay with Eleanor, and lived until 1952.
That was the year the Republicans finally won a Presidential election. This victory was put in doubt by reports of financial chicanery by Vice Presidential candidate Richard Nixon. There was a tv speech given to address these concerns.
“One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don’t they’ll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something-a gift-after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was. It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he’d sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl-Tricia, the 6-year old-named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.”
Mr. Nixon won that election, and moved into the White House, as POTUS, in 1969. After Mr. Nixon died in 1994, PG saw a huge flag at half mast. It was a hamburger stand called Checkers.
Meanwhile, Bo Obama takes his four legged duty very seriously. @FDOTUS. No, I didn’t know that was Abe Lincoln’s bible and yes, I’m sorry I chewed it. Can we moved on?
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.