Right-wing Newsmax host Greg Kelly is offering a bad impression of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
He actually devoted a segment of his Friday evening show to insulting President Joe Biden’s German Shepherd Champ.
Kelly showed a picture of Champ and said: “Did you see the dog? I wanted to show you something I noticed. Doesn’t he look a little rough? I love dogs, but this dog needs a bath and a comb and all kinds of love and care. I’ve never seen a dog in the White House like this. I remember Buddy, I remember Milly, I remember lots of dogs, but not a dog who seems… I don’t know. I don’t know how much love and care he is getting. This dog looks like, I’m sorry, like it’s from the junkyard.”
He then brought on two conservative historians to mock Biden’s dog. Craig Shirley, author of four books about Ronald Reagan, piled on more insults, calling Champ “dirty and disheveled, and very unlike a presidential dog.”
Well Kelly just happens to be an ageist when it comes to dogs. Champ after all is 12 years old, which makes him a senior citizen for his breed which has a life expectancy of 9 to 13 years.
And do you know why no one ever insulted Donald Trump’s dog. Because he never had one.
In fact, Trump was the first president since James K. Polk (1845-49) to never have a White House pet (unless you count Eric). Admittedly some Republicans had pretty unusual pets: Calvin Coolidge had a raccoon named Rebecca, and Herbert Hoover kept a pet opossum.
Well it looks like Biden will have to rise to the occasion and channel his inner FDR after his defenseless dog was insulted.
During the 1944 presidential campaign, Roosevelt’s Scotch terrier Fala became the subject of a Republican political attack.
Roosevelt took his beloved dog almost everywhere, including on overseas trips. Republicans spread a story claiming that Roosevelt had accidentally left Fala behind while visiting the Aleutian Islands and accused the president of sending a Navy destroyer to pick up the dog, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
FDR responded to the “libelous statements” about his dog with his famous Fala speech at a campaign event. New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey was the Republican candidate that year.