8/29/2024

ASKS THE CAT: WHY HAVE AN INTERVIEW, WHEN EVERY QUESTION WILL HAVE THE SAME ANSWER?

“WHAT’S THE POINT?”
     “Who’s asking?” I said.
     “What’s the point of that interview Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are scheduled to have Thursday night  on CNN?”
     The voice seemed to be coming from our living room ceiling, but I couldn’t determine the origin until I spotted Ben, the cat, sitting on the top of a tall step ladder I was using to fix some old windows.
     “Are you sure you can get down from there?” I asked. The ladder was so tall that Ben's head practi;cally bumped the ceiling when he sat straight up.
     “You’re avoiding the question” Ben scolded. “Sounds like classic deflection to me. You don’t know the answer, so you’ve changed the subject.”
     “It’s possible,” I acknowledged. “But really, Ben, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

HUMANS HAVE A HARD TIME figuring out what cats think. Do they like us? Are they hungry? Does Ben relish the dry food that appears in his bowl day after day? What does he make of the rabbits in the backyard, whom he  never gets to meet face-to-face, because he’s an “indoor cat,” a status in which he’s had absolutely no say? Will he, one night, murder us in our sleep?
     The mystery has become worse since he began talking a few weeks ago. There’s nothing wrong with his diction - he has a slight Southern accent, since he was born in Florida - but when he talks, it only about one thing: the Election.
     I suppose that makes sense. NPR and MSNBC play incessantly in our house, along with various podcasts featuring an array of conservative and liberal Never-Trumpers.  The New York Times is delivered Monday through Friday. This is unhealthy for any brain, cat or human.
     But Ben started talking when J.D. Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies” surfaced after Trump named the Ohio senator as his running mate.
     A lot of people took the comment as an ugly slur against single women. But Ben worried that Republicans were declaring war on an important element of the cat-care ecosystem. Suddenly, politics was personal.

 “THE POINT OF THE CNN INTERVIEW is to find out what kind of a president and vice president Harris and Walz might be,” I said, getting back to Ben’s question.
     “You mean that Dana Bash will ask Harris and her Veep, after they win this election, whether they will try to overthrow the 2028 election if they don’t win enough votes?” Ben said.
     Give Ben credit for knowing that the interviewer would be Bash, the cable network’s chief political correspondent; but the cat gets zero points for suggesting a frivolous  question.
     “There are lots of important things,” I said, “that voters want to know and deserve to know about Harris and Walz – before they vote on Nov. 5.”
     “Should Bash ask whether Harris-Walz are, like Trump?” Ben suggested. “Are they rapists, serial liars, would-be autocrats and dictators, women-haters, Putin poodles? Do they want to round up, detain and deport millions of undocumented immigrants?”
     “Respectable journalists have raised big issues," I said. "Take the New York Times’s columnist David Leonhardt; he came up with a list of 25 major questions, the kind Harris and Walz should be able to answer for voters. Here’s one:”
     Madam Vice President, your agenda revolves around helping the middle class — such as offering a credit of up to $25,000 for first-time home buyers and increasing the child tax credit. You haven’t said much about some big related issues, though, including paid leave and universal preschool. Will you try to revive President Biden’s plans?

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      “What’s wrong with that?”
     “Pompous, too wordy,” the cat said, “And that's just for starters. What’s the deal about ‘reviving’ Biden’s plans for paid leave and universal preschool? Sounds like a sneaky way of asking whether Harris is going to be a Joe Biden clone.”
     “But a legitimate issue,” I argued. “Should voters know whether Harris plans to continue the work of President Biden?”
     “Whatever Harris says won’t make any difference,” Ben growled, glaring down from his stepladder perch. “Let’s say she gives one of three possible responses:
     "Answer A: Biden belongs in a nursing home, not the Oval Office.
     "Answer B: President Biden is the greatest president in our lifetime.
     "Answer C.  Joe who?”
     “So, Ben, the cat, sees no value in knowing what a Harris-Walz administration will do?”
     “I know, and you know,” Ben said. “David Leonhardt and everyone else knows what this election is about.  There’s only one issue: making sure that Donald Trump is not re-elected president.
     “This is a “Yes or No” election.”
     “Turn right at the fork; or turn left.”
     “On or Off.”
     “Forward or Backward.”
     “I see what you're getting at,” I said. “This is not an ordinary election. If you don’t like this Harris policy or that Walz position, does that mean you vote for Trump instead? Of course not.”
     “It’s just common sense,” said the cat.