A few days ago, the Victoria Times-Colonist treated us to a profile (we use “profile” here, but you may prefer the term “panting hagiography”) of newly-minted senior B.C. cabinet minister Ida Chong, who will now be responsible for higher education in the province. (Maybe they mean higher-priced education. If so, you can stamp that “Mandate More Than Fulfilled”.)
The only actual information in the piece is the news that Ms. Chong has recently acquired a spaniel named Checkers. Cute, huh?
Now, pop quiz: can you name someone else who was in public life and who managed to get a certain amount of political mileage out of a spaniel named Checkers? (Hint — Rearrange these letters to spell out his name: RICHARN DIXON)
Pencils down, and yes, the answer is Richard Nixon. Surprise! (No points to anyone who answered Xinard Rochin. Close, but Xinard actually owned a Dachshund named Cribbage.) In Nixon’s classic “Checkers speech,” he answered charges that he’d improperly accepted gifts by saying the only gift he’d accepted was a spaniel named Checkers, and he wasn’t going to take the dog away from his daughters. The speech was immediately derided throughout America as a maudlin, manipulative, self-serving, dishonest piece of demagoguery and is therefore the prototype for most political speeches written ever since.
Maybe we’re just crabby here at ODTAA because the household is recovering from three bouts of Norwalk-like virus. It leads to such speculation as:
- If this is Norwalk-like, how horrifically bad is Norwalk itself?
- Is the Norwalk Chamber of Commerce at all concerned about the aspersions this is casting on their fine community (possible town motto: “Visit All Day, Vomit Violently All Night”)?
- And when will that other shoe drop with Gary Collins’ resignation?
Oh. Thump.
