cat

[Victor Steinbok]

GQ has a longish excerpt from a book by one of Bush's speech writers.
New York Magazine (nymag.com) summarized the piece as "10 things we
learned about George Bush". Among the 10 things, there is this one:

5. Bush Refers to People As "Cat": "We got to make this understandable
for the average cat," he said of one speech. Another time, talking about
candidate Barack Obama, Bush said, "This is a dangerous world, and this
cat isn’t remotely qualified to handle it."


Last time I heard "cat" used like that was in Fritz the Cat cartoons by
Ralph Bakshi--since he does not refer to anyone as a Crow, it's probably
safe to say he did not learn it from there. OK, so maybe there were some
TV ads that referred to "cool cats" (I have an image of a cheetah with
sunglasses in my head, for some reason). Or maybe some NYC BE in Kojak
(as little of it as there was in the show--probably associated with
musicians). Either way, the language is bizarre for an upper middle-age
white guy who grew up in suburban Connecticut and "matured" (if this
word applies) in Texas.

Am I missing something here?

VS-)

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