Getting a grip without retractable claws

Much as I should have left the hell alone my last post about Ellen DeGeneres’s dog rescue issues, I didn’t. Instead, I reiterated my point in an update by making a Hillary Clinton/Ellen DeGeneres comparison:

Via Glenn Reynolds, I read that when she got Socks, the White House cat, Hillary Clinton “lectured readers” that pets are an “adoption instead of an acquisition.” Later, she dumped the cat on her secretary, who now has it.
It sounds as if Hillary thinks adopting an animal is less of a commitment than buying an animal.
I never really thought about it before, but I guess if it’s not really yours, where’s the commitment?

This didn’t seem like all that big a deal at the time. But now the cat fight has spread, and my original point about the virtues of buying versus adopting (or “rescuing”) animals seems lost.
Yeah, OK, I was originally talking about dogs, not cats (and definitely not cats owned by Hillary Clinton). I am a dog person and I’m probably now treading on thin ice. (There’s that old saying that you should stick to what you know.) I generally try to avoid cats because I’m allergic to them and I don’t own them. Plus cat owners get really weird and emotional about them, and if you say anything that can be seen as in any way wrong, cat people will often go ballistic. I’m sure if I said that it was better to buy a cat than rent one via the “rescue” service, I’d get flak from one cat faction, and if I said it was better to rescue or adopt than buy, flak would fly from another. Cat people can be catty, and cat fights result, so I just try to stay the hell out of it.
And this isn’t just any cat. It was Hillary’s cat!
I did think that Ann Althouse raised a good point in her earlier post, though, in which she rather cattily ventured that Hillary should go on TV and talk to Ellen. When I read it, I thought I’d said enough about the virtues of privately owned dogs (which wasn’t Ann Althouse’s point), and I just didn’t want to start a new post getting into a detailed moral comparison of Ellen’s dog and Hillary’s cat.
I do think that in general if you own something, you’ll tend to take better care of it than if you rent it, and in my callused opinion, adopting an animal (especially when you don’t have title) is more like a rental, while purchasing it is more like real parenting or home ownership. I realize people will disagree with me, and these things are emotional, so I thought I’d let the Ellen post die its natural death.
So perhaps adding the Hillary cat update was asking for trouble. That’s because I have this weird inability to ignore unfinished things, and now the Ellen/Hillary thing has escalated into a catfight, with Andrew Sullivan weighing in by misunderstanding Ann Althouse.
What the former objected to was this:

So, Hillary, just go on the Ellen show — if Ellen ever manages to stop the tears and broadcast again — and cry about how terribly much you loved Socks and have Ellen help you explain why love is what makes you get rid of the pet. Then you can get back to telling us how you’re going to bring the womanosity to the presidency.

While I think the humor and sarcasm are obvious, I’m going to give Andrew Sullivan the benefit of the doubt and take it seriously, and literally. The fact is that even if we take this as genuine advice, Ann Althouse showed remarkable restraint. For not only did Hillary dump Socks, but in 1996, she had Socks declawed (a procedure which renders a cat vulnerable by removing its primary means of self defense):

In a recent interview, Hillary Clinton disclosed that Socks has been declawed in December 1996. The First Family’s decision to declaw Socks was in part at the insistence of the Secret Service, after Bill was seen wearing a bandage on his cheek. At first, he said he had cut himself shaving, but later he revealed Socks had scratched him. Perhaps the declawing was postponed until until after the presidential electlion to avoid it becoming a campaign issue.

This horrific and sadistic act caused an NPR reporter/cat lover to negatively compare Hillary to the (Pat) Buchanans (who did not declaw their cat):

the Buchanans did not have their cat declawed, which is more than you can say for our current president. Mrs. Clinton recently told the world on TV, and without a hint of remorse, that Socks was declawed years ago – probably to save the White House furniture.

For shame!
Again, I think Ann Althouse was being too kind. The overwhelming evidence is that as a cat parent, Hillary Clinton stinks. (I guess that would be stank.)
Thus, sense of humor or not, there is no practical need for any catfight.