Barack Obama Is Felix The Cat Poem by gershon hepner

Barack Obama, being plucky,
resembles the black cat called Felix,
but surely, being far more plucky,
he’ll win again. A double helix
is written in his DNA,
and found within his cat-like genes
that help him reproduce each day
the measures for which we’ve no means
to pay for. Yet since he’s a cat
he’ll have nine lives, and maybe four
more years to pitch at us and bat,
and purr in ways that some adore,
though fat cats may try to declaw
this puss before he does more harm.
I wouldn’t do this, quite in awe
of him and his ailurocharm;
I’d rather stroke him since I hope
that while I do it he won’t scratch;
he’s Felix, happily no dope,
and still the best of all the batch.

Inspired by a blog in Huffington Post by Niall Ferguson:

1. Black cats are proverbially lucky.

2. Felix the cartoon character was a black cat, not an African-American cat - in other words, he was not one of the (quite numerous) 1920s figures in popular entertainment that mocked the mannerisms of the descendants of slaves.

3. Obama is a lucky president––so far. Compare his first six months with Carter's and Clinton's if you don't get that bit.

4. As for the word 'black', it's the same one used by the Congressional Black Caucus and the Harvard Black Alumni Society, among others.

The piece made an important point about the biggest threat to Obama's presidency: the seemingly uncontrollable deficit. That's the issue the Huffington Post should be focusing on, not politically correct claptrap.

8/12/09