Bidens New Dogs. WTF?
“Joe, they’re Boo and Scout.”
“Right, right. Who the hell picked those names?”
The Rescue DOG & End of Life Sanctuary in Mountain City, Tennessee, has proudly confirmed that the Bidens’ new dogs–a pair of five-month-old, black Lab-mix puppies–came from there. This means someone at the shelter reviewed the Bidens’ dog-owning record, considered the actuarial math on an 83-year-old adopter who frequently forgets why he is in the bathroom, and decided to proceed anyway.
The standard adoption questionnaire for civilians at a shelter usually asks about living situation, activity level, and experience with dogs. The Bidens certainly have experience with dogs and with hackneyed dog names. (Commander and Major? That’s what you name a German shepherd when you want to look as if you gave it serious thought.)
Commander bit Secret Service agents so frequently, more than twenty times, that the agents began treating those attacks as line-item workplace hazards. Major, the Bidens previous shepherd, also bit people. Apparently, the Bidens viewed dog ownership as an opportunity to stress-test the federal workforce. Both dogs eventually had to be removed from the premises. This is the track record the shelter reviewed before handing over two animals who have not yet made a single considered decision in their lives.
One of two things, probably both, happened here. The Bidens wanted the photo op. Elderly couple, adorable rescue pups, rocking chairs on a sun-dappled porch — the story writes itself.
The Bidens’ calculation was image restoration through animal adjacency, a move so old it has barnacles on it. Voters who may no longer remember what an ineffective president you were will sometimes remember that they like dogs, too.
Or perhaps the shelter wanted the photo. A former First Family adoption is a fundraising bonanza. The email practically drafts itself. The banner ad, ditto. That the adoptive household has demonstrated the dog-management skills of teen-agers whose parents are on vacation is, in the face of a good image, a no-brainer.
The dogs, for their part, do not get an opinion. They are five months old. They will chew whatever is in front of them, sleep in whatever sunbeam presents itself, and bring the full chaos of young Labrador cognition to bear on whoever is nominally in charge.
In that sense, the match is more symmetrical than it looks.
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