Where is Barney? No one has seen him. Is the entire Rove/Novak/Plame/Wilson revelation designed to distract us with a diversion so we won't notice that Barney is gone? Is this the President's hidden agenda?

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Where is Barney?-- the First Dog. The Presidential Dog. That cute little, black Scottish Terrier.

It’s been a while. I haven’t seen the First Dog in about two months, at least, now. What gives?

Poor Barney. Is he not being walked? Is no one playing fetch with him? Is he not being taken to his weekly trip to the First Dog groomer? I demand an answer. Barney is why I voted for President Bush. I feel betrayed.

I’m worried. About Barney.

The only reason I ever watched the nightly news was to see if Barney was being taken on his daily Presidential walk from the White House to the shiny green Presidential helicopter; and then from the helicopter across the White House lawn back to the White House; and then back out of the White House, across the lawn and into the helicopter again; and over and over and over. He used to be one of the most exercised dogs in America.

I loved the way President Bush would scoop up Barney in his Presidential arms, salute the on-guard Marine, and carry Barney up the helicopter’s Presidential steps and turn around and give the crowd a Presidential wave. It’s why I voted for “Presidential” George W. Bush. It was Barney that did it. I voted for Barney. God, I love that dog.

I don’t care if President Bush spent $300 billion of taxpayer’s money on Iraq and we have nothing to show for it.

I don’t care if we have 70 million Americans with no health insurance; 9 million unemployed; 12 million long term unemployed; over a million jobs outsourced to China and India; a minimum wage of $5.15 an hour (about $10,000 a year); and the fact that almost 8 million Americans have declared bankruptcy in the past five years. I don’t care. I miss Barney.

I don’t even much care if 100,000 Iraqis have been killed in Iraq, mostly by Americans. I try to care, but can’t, about the 1800 Americans that have been killed in Iraq and the 12,000 that have been seriously wounded. I don’t know a single victim. I rarely see a single “fallen hero” on TV. And now I don’t see Barney, who I use to see almost every day, scampering across the White House lawn with the President of the United States of America. It’s why I voted for him, the President that is, not Barney.

God, I love that dog.

I don’t care if there are 20 million illegal aliens living in the United States and 3 million more sneak across our southern border every year. Is Barney OK?

I don’t care about creationism vs. evolution, pro-life vs. pro-choice; the Ten Commandments, whether our little one’s should be praying in school, whether we should fly the flag or desecrate it, or who is or who isn’t “born again”. Barney doesn’t care. Barney doesn’t have a religion.

How is Barney doing? That’s all I care about.

I don’t even care about my own personal dilemma. I don’t care about the fact that I, at 55, have been laid off from my job and still can’t find a new one after 18 months. I don’t care about the fact that my health insurance company has dropped me from my policy and that a new policy would cost me over $1500 a month. Barney, I miss you.

I don’t care if my lifelong employer where I worked for the past 30 years has reneged on my retirement pension leaving me to twist in the wind. I don’t care if my wife recently ran up $150,000 in medical bills for back surgery and 8 days in the hospital. I don’t care if I need to spend $1000 a month on prescription medication and have no way to pay for it. Will we ever know if Barney is safe and warm and happy?

I don’t care if I’m a Vietnam veteran and I’m not even eligible for any health coverage at the VA center (which just closed down anyway). I don’t even care if my application for personal bankruptcy is approved at the bankruptcy hearing that is scheduled for my wife and I next month. I just don’t care. All I can think about is ----how is Barney?

Barney always did what dogs do best. Nothing.

Damn, I love that dog.

I don’t care if Rove leaked the identity of a CIA undercover agent to Cooper who may have repeated it to Novak who wrote about it in his column after he revealed it to Miller who may have heard it from Libby who did or did not hear it from Cheney who knew nothing about Plame being the wife of Wilson who wrote about yellowcake uranium not being purchased by Saddam Hussein from Niger.

I don’t care if the President is not talking because the investigation is not finished because all the facts have not come out and because no one can come forward and tell the truth until it is all resolved by Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor.

Barney probably knows more than anyone about everything that goes on in the White House. He just isn’t talking. And no one can make him talk.

Where oh where is Barney? I hope he didn’t get out and run away and get lost. Doesn’t anyone care but me?

Last week I saw the President on TV walking across the White House lawn with Karl Rove in tow apparently orchestrated to show that the President supports Mr. Rove in this time of tribulation about Plame/Novak/Cooper/Miller, etc. Scott McClellan was close behind as if being walked on a dog leash by the President. Barney would have been jealous.

Barney was nowhere in sight. I’m worried.

I don’t care about the $500 billion deficit, what happened to the $350 tax giveback for the wealthy or the $8 trillion national debt. I can’t care about money at a time like this. I’m worried about Barney.

Sometimes I think I am being set-up. I know politics can be sinister and manipulative. I’ve heard all about “dirty tricks”, leaking to the press, and staged photo-ops. Is this a ploy? Is information about Barney being withheld to purposely distract me about the plight of our great nation when the scourge of international terrorism and evildoers is challenging us? Is this a political trick to divert me from concern about issues like the national health care crisis and the economic and financial precipice from which our nation teeters on the edge?

Bush should thank God that Barney can’t be called to testify before the Grand Jury. If Barney was subpoenaed to testify, the President’s goose would be cooked. Barney, under oath, and threatened with jail time, would have to spill the beans. It would be worse than a Cessna flying low and slow directly over the White House. It would be implosion time for all of the regular, big-wig, special interest parasites who visit the White House. Barney has taken names, and dogs don’t forget easily. Barney knows who is a friend of America and who is a foe. It’s instinctive with dogs. They just know.

If only I knew----about Barney, that is. If I could be assured that Barney was safe everything would be okay. All I want is just one more 30-second video clip on TV showing Barney walking proudly across the White House lawn to the shiny green helicopter.

I love that dog.

James Boyne
dboyne@aol.com

James Boyne is a freelance writer who has written dozens of humorous, political satires which can be accessed at “Columnist’s Archives” at www.opednews.com. He welcomes your comments at his email address. His writings also have been published on many other Progressive web sites.

Authors Bio:
The author is a freelance writer.