Barney the Brave:
The Unauthorized Autobiography of a White House Dog, By Kitty Kalico
Truman once said that the only friend the president has in the White House is his dog. I am here to tell you that in my case anyway that is not necessarily the truth. Perhaps it is different between a Democrat and his dog, but the only thing I want between me and old Whistle Ass is distance—the more the better.
I know, it sounds cruel, but that man could make a dog go barking mad. Oh, it’s not like he doesn’t try to be a dog’s best friend. He does—try that is. Always sniffing around, nosing his way into my business. Playing tricks, hiding my favorite bone or stealing my kibbles, making messes I get blamed for. Sometimes, all I want to do is pee on his hand-tooled armadillo cowboy boots.
But then he fixes those droopy little squint eyes in my direction, all watery and pitiful, begging for me to let him roll the ball with his nose across the Rose Garden. What can I say?
Who wants to deny a man a job in this economy?
Of course, my friends the men in black tell me every night that it’s my job to be nice to the president. For my country they keep telling me. Because I am the one they call DOGPOTUS. My name is Barney, and I work the White House beat. My partner, Whistle Ass occupies the Oval Office.
Machine Man (he ticks like an egg timer) is Whistle Ass’s boss, and whenever he visits, Whistle Ass looks more downcast than a Great Dane brownnosing a wiener dog. Being a smart dog, myself, I try to lie low under the desk just in case Machine Man’s timer goes off. Most days, unless they are talking about blowing things up, Whistle Ass soon starts to fidget and tap his foot on my head. That’s when the one they call Rummy gives him a pig’s ear to chew on, one of his favorite treats. It always calms him down.
I don’t think Machine Man likes me. He’s always scratching and growling at me out of corner of his mouth. He acts like he’s the top dog around here, but he’s not. I am. Still, he’s creepy and stays at an undisclosed location, so I hide my bones when he comes just to be on the safe side.
Sometimes after a long meeting when he is looking lethargic as roadkill, I almost feel sorry for Whistle Ass. I look up from under the desk and prod him with my nose. I wonder what he would think if he knew I was a card carrying member of the ACLU? Certainly wouldn’t scratch my belly or call me pal, now would he?
When he’s really bored, he’ll cut the cheese to clear the room. Condi will glare at him in her icy way, and he’ll turn pale, then look at me sternly and say “Shame on you, Barney.”
Everyone knows, of course, that it wasn’t me. . They call it “plausible deniability” and leave the room which is what old Whistle Ass wants anyway. Then he can pee off the balcony on the secret service guys’ standing in the Rose Garden. That’s always good for a laugh. He’s real sly since he knows Laura
doesn’t like when he leads me astray.
Not since that problem with the pretzels. You remember the one?
What can I tell you? It was in all the newpapers. He was quoted at the time as saying ” I hit the deck and woke up, and there was Barney and Spot showing a lot of concern.” That’s what he told the reporters on Monday morning anyway. “I didn't realize what happened until I looked in the mirror, and my glasses cut my side of my face…”
As Ari would say, a little revisionist history never harmed anyone: but the unvarnished truth is when Spot and I found him, lying in a pool of his own bodily fluids, his vomit-spattered face smashed into the carpet , there was not a single pretzel anywhere in sight. I swear on a stack of Ann Coulter books. Not even a crumb. Otherwise it looked and smelled like a Munich beer hall.
“For medicinal purposes,” Laura always says with a smile. She must be sick quite a lot, because I see her taking medicine all the time. Sometimes, after I bring the morning paper, she’s got that bottle out before she’s even dressed.
I don’t think she likes what they say about us in the papers.
One time she read where someone said about me that I used Whistle Ass as “a leg up to political power” and that I put on “airs,” and “scampered about the corridors of the White House like a Star.”
That was after I made the infamous Barneycam Christmas video. The way folks carried on about taxpayer funds, you’d think I was Larry Flynt working for PBS.
People need to get a grip. It was just Whistle Ass on his knees chasing me around. We hardly destroyed any Federal property.
Besides, it was his idea to strap a spycam on me with duct tape. You better believe I was mad. So, a few knickknacks got roughed up. Some documents torn. What’s the big deal?
I may be a conspiracy theorist, but sometimes I think I have enemies in high places. Ones who leak information to the press.
Why just last week, U.S. News and World Report stated that the
president’s dog “refuses to listen to his commands,” and “rarely plays with Bush.”
I was shocked.
How did they find out? The only explanation I can come up with is that there’s a mole in the White House. Deep Doo Doo, I call him.
And so, the smear campaign continues. Fox News reports that Blair, not Barney is Bush’s “favorite lapdog.” Fair and balanced? Sniff my butt.
And who unmuzzled Maureen Dowd? She described me coming down from Air Force One under Whistle Ass’s arm as “that little furball Barney…that canine puff of air that most drag queens wouldn't be caught dead with…halfway to a Chanel rabbit fur handbag.”
Distemper shot, anyone?
Whistle Ass said she was a “bitch is in heat” and needed a night out with the Canine Corps.
He made the Attorney General tap her phone. But you didn’t hear that from me. You should hear what she says about Al Gore in private.
A lot of people ask me why I wasn’t with Whistle Ass on 9/11 when he
was saving the country from terrorists by flying away on Air Force One as fast as he could. I kind of wonder about that too. I was in the White House all day.
I was also with him the day the bombs started falling in Iraq. We were out in the Rose Garden, me refusing to play with him.
“Now Barney,” I remember him saying. “Am I going to have to issue an executive order?” He was looking at me with a funny glint in his eye like he was about to order a lethal injection for me. It made my blood run cold. “Go find the yellowcake, boy.”
Find the yellowcake? What the hell was he talking about?
I sniffed the grass around his shoes to humor him, but that wasn’t good enough for him. “Find the WMDs, Barney. “ Luckily, he has a short attention span, so it wasn’t long before he lost interest and wandered back
into the White House.
And of course, now he’s history.
The story may have been padded a bit, but the way I heard it he won the war, brought peace to the Middle East, and landed an F-16 on the
flight deck of the Abraham Lincoln without breaking a sweat. And still had time to chase a frisbee when he got home. What a guy!
Lately, I have been wondering if he’s taking medicine again. I can smell it on his breath.
A few days after the war ended, he dropped me on the tarmac like his
fumbled foreign policy.
They don’t call him butterfingers for nothing. Right in front of a girls’ baseball team, too.
Major league klutz.
The things a dog has to do for his
country. I outta get a medal.
Or at least a stinking badge.
Yeah, yeah, I know what you are
thinking. Here pooch! Smile for the camera. Bite Me.
If he doesn’t look good, I don’t look good.
Don’t block my light, buster.
I’m a media whore now.
Dedicated to Sally Baron, 1932-2003