Arkansas Celebrates Return of Socks the Cat!

Reuters | 12-06-02 | staff writer

[yankeedame]

Arkansas Celebrates Return of Socks

Reuters

LITTLE ROCK (Dec. 6) - Former first feline Socks the cat, the ultimate insider of two Clinton administrations, will return home to Arkansas for the first time since leaving the White House and be honored in a parade through the state's capital, organizers said Friday.

Socks will be the grand marshal of the annual Little Rock Christmas parade Saturday. The 11-year-old cat will lead the parade and ride aboard a vintage 1967 Ford Mustang convertible owned by former President Bill Clinton.

It will mark the first return to Arkansas in about 10 years for the stray cat adopted by the Clinton family. Holding Socks in the parade will be Jackye Parker, principal of a Little Rock elementary school named for Clinton, and some of the school's students.

Socks, so named by Chelsea Clinton in recognition of his four white paws, is an otherwise coal black cat adopted by the former president's daughter in 1991, while her father was still governor of Arkansas.

When Clinton won the presidency in 1992, Socks, by then a celebrity, moved to the White House with the family.

When Clinton's eight-year tenure as president ended, he and his wife, Hillary, moved to New York, from where the former first lady won a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Chelsea Clinton, now studying at Oxford University in England, entrusted Socks to her father's White House secretary, Betty Currie of Washington, who is accompanying the cat to Little Rock.

''It will be quite a homecoming for Socks,'' said Linda Caillouet of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau. ''He has probably missed Arkansas terribly.''

Reuters 19:11 12-06-02

[Puddleglum]

Warning to Socks -- Bill Frist has expressed an interest in you! (okay, that is sick, I know)

[martin_fierro]

Ping

[veronica]

Is this from The Onion?!?

[apackof2]

annual Little Rock Christmas parade Saturday

Christmas parade in January?

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Christmas parade in January?

Story is from December 6th.

[Lando Lincoln]

I like cats - I have two of 'em....but I can't help observe that:

Cats are typically ammoral, unfaithful and disloyal. Kind of fitting for the Clintons, isn't it??

[BenLurkin]

What are you trying to say?

[kassie]

This article brings a whole new meaning to "get a life". Do these people worship the toons that much??

[BenLurkin]

"Cats are typically ammoral, unfaithful and disloyal."

BTW Mrs. BenLurkin strongly disagrees. Her tabby, who looks a lot like this guy,
not only follows her around the house day and night but will roll over (literally) upon her command.

[BaBaStooey]

Socks....the smartest Clinton!!

The only one who wised up and managed to escape the Clinton family!

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

Cats are wretched, traitorous beings - must be why I've got four of the little monsters!

[joesnuffy]

Warning to Socks: "All glory is fleeting especially if you take the attention of Bill & Hitlery
Remember what happend to Buddy.....your loss could be parlayed into a great deal of publicity to...the kind they like....sympathy for the devils

[BeAllYouCanBe]

My own slide to the depths of cat love happened slowly:

When my daughter was 13 I bought her two cats and said that if she wanted them she'd have to care for them. At age 18 she joined the Army and left home and me with the cats. I wasn't too happy about having to care for these wretched creatures -- I never even noticed the cats before.

That was 5 years ago and today I must admit the little beasts run my life from dictating what I do and where and when I sleep. I thought I was a dog person but these animals have a way of growing on you.

[lonestar]

I've only had a cat one time and only for two weeks. If I got into the bathtub, so did the cat.

I was fresh out of college, working in a primary school.

I told some kids to draw a picture with animals. One kid said, "Do you want a cat?" and I said, "Yes, that would be good." The next morning the kid showed up with a kitten for me. It went home with me until I found it a happy home.

And I learned a lesson! LOL!

[Lando Lincoln]

I expected some response! ;>)....... I love my cats for what they are! My three dogs, too! Especially when they try to "figure" out the felines. Have a great day, pet lovers!

[Revenge Of Daffy-Duck]

The article seems to have left out some imoprtant details.
A friend of mine was in the Secret Service during the Clinton years. She said that with Chelsey in college, socks spent all day, every day, year round, tied to a tree on the Whitehouse lawn. ---You may remeber the film clip of Boy-genius Pres. Buttafuco leading a (Naturally)foaming-at-the-mouth Buddy the dog up to a tethered Socks and the fight that resulted.--- Socks was so ignored and generally neglected that eventualy it was the Seceret Service and the other Gurads who sort of adopted her, making sure she was fed and had water, and they would move her inside when the weather was bad. She said that some Agents felt that if anyone else neglected their cat the way the Clintons did, the Guards would have reported them to Animal Welfare.

[Luna]

Whatever.

Does anyone think that Socks gives a rat's rear end? This isn't about the cat, it's about people's feelings for the cat.

I love animals, but why do people get so wacky about them to the point of honoring them like little gods? Sort of like tree-huggers. Animal-huggers.

[Darksheare]

You mean socks wasn't silenced like Buddy was?

[BeAllYouCanBe]

[snip]"Agents felt that if anyone else neglected their cat the way the Clintons did, the Guards would have reported them to Animal Welfare."

Somehow, I think if the Ameican public had known Clinton's terrible treatment of Socks, for sure Clinton would have been thrown out of office. You can screw all the interns you want just don't mistreat a pet. The media spent so much time searching for Clinton's glory they really overlooked his true character.

When the Bush administration took over and the Clinton staff trashed the Whitehouse and the computer keyboards (W's)it showed their true nature. B-T-W, I heard that Hitlery did not allow the staff to give her eye-contact -- just look at the ground you scum!