Opinion
Bush family mourns feline
By: Jeff Dufour
Editor at Large/Columnist, "Yeas & Nays"
01/06/09 12:05 AM EST
Nine lives onlyThere are four fewer legs in the White House, the Bush family sadly disclosed Monday.
India, the first family’s 18-year-old American shorthair cat, died at home Sunday.
“India was a beloved member of the Bush family for almost two decades,” said Sally McDonough, the first lady’s spokeswoman. “She will be greatly missed.” The cat had been a fixture in their lives since the time the president owned the Texas Rangers. His name, in fact, came from then-Ranger Ruben Sierra, who was known as “El Indio.”
India’s condition may have been declining for several weeks, if a blog called Cats Working (“where cats think ... talk ... and type”) is to be believed. In a post last month, the cat-obsessed site noted that Barney — one of the Bushes’ two family dogs — had released his annual Christmas video. “Daughter Barbara Bush is sitting on the floor petting a black cat rather obsessively, but the cat’s presence is never acknowledged by anyone else, nor is it seen again until the closing credits,” the blog notes. “As usual, the video is all about the dogs. Was that India or a stunt cat? It looks like India, but the credits bill it as ‘Willard the Cat.’ ”
Nevertheless, even if the rest of the nation isn’t as cat-crazy as, well, cat bloggers, it seems that newspapers are: The passing of the cat generated 220 Google News hits as of Monday afternoon — nearly 60 percent of the total stories that were listed on the death of former Attorney General Griffin Bell.
