Farewell Buddy

January 3, 2002 7:02 AM

Farewell Buddy Former Pres. Clinton's dog Buddy was hit and killed by a car near their home in NY.
posted by Lanternjmk (44 comments total)

The driver's name was not disclosed.....
Sounds like a vast right-wing conspiracy to me.

Has anybody checked up on Socks?
posted by wsfinkel at 7:03 AM on January 3, 2002

Yeah. Right. Buddy was "hit by a car" just like Vince Foster "committed suicide."

Let's face it folks: Buddy knew too much.

Is there no end to this?
posted by monkey-mind at 7:04 AM on January 3, 2002

Has anybody checked up on Socks?

Word on the street is that Socks was driving the car.
posted by MrBaliHai at 7:14 AM on January 3, 2002

You guys are all funky on the junk. Did you not consider that perhaps this was a family hit?
posted by fleener at 7:24 AM on January 3, 2002

Socks retired to Virginia, put out to pasture with Betty Currie, Bill Clinton's ever-loyal secretary. In his farewell, the former First Cat said of Buddy:
"...I had the White House all to myself for four years. Those were good years. Then the big brown dog arrived. He really got my back up, but like East and West Germans, like North and South Koreans, and I hope like Northern Irish and eventually Israelis and Palestinians, the dog and I eventually learned to live with each other in peace." Don't blame Socks!
posted by Carol Anne at 7:31 AM on January 3, 2002

The Secret Service has some explaining to do!
According to the Lycos-Reuters Story, the police were involved ("His dog was hit by a car ... we received a call yesterday afternoon," said Sgt. Charles Ferry of the New Castle, N.Y., police). It doesn't make clear why the cops were called or by whom.
My condolences to the ex-Prez. I had a Buddy-dog once, and have lost more than one pet to vehicular traffic. (And there are, sad to say, people who will go out of their way to run down an animal. I'm not saying this was the case for the former First Dog, however.)
posted by StOne at 7:38 AM on January 3, 2002

I blame John Derbyshire.
posted by rodii at 7:40 AM on January 3, 2002

Sorry that your dog died, Bill.
posted by ColdChef at 7:50 AM on January 3, 2002

Why was Buddy running loose? Couldn't terrorists dognap him and hold him for top secret info ransom? Secret Service Canine Squad really dropped the ball here.

R.I.P. Buddy.
posted by HTuttle at 7:52 AM on January 3, 2002

Kenneth Starr had been waiting, patiently, patiently, for his moment to strike...
posted by Ty Webb at 8:06 AM on January 3, 2002

Poor Buddy. I used to have a Lab too; they're great dogs.
posted by GriffX at 8:12 AM on January 3, 2002

i used to have a dog to. oh no i didnt it was a hamster - she died to, her name was henry
posted by monkeyJuice at 8:15 AM on January 3, 2002

For those needing condolence:
posted by HTuttle at 8:20 AM on January 3, 2002

Rather than condolence, why not join the Human Society of the United States or the ASPCA or even PETA (with a nice new site and a *real* domain name this time) to help ensure that people are actually responsible for animals and animal welfare?
posted by boardman at 8:27 AM on January 3, 2002

Time to update the Clinton body count... I'm sure the police will compliantly label this a "suicide" like all the others. I don't know what to believe or whom to trust anymore.
posted by dhartung at 8:27 AM on January 3, 2002

The media hasn't been reporting it out of respect for the former president, but the years have not been kind to Buddy. I suspect he became disoriented and wandered away from home. Buddy had alzheimers.
posted by fleener at 8:31 AM on January 3, 2002

That poor dog, left alone in that big house in Chappaqua, with the Clintons gone most of the time, the only people he gets to play with are Secret Service agents, and they're just sooo serious. No wonder he tried to run away.
posted by panopticon at 8:32 AM on January 3, 2002

When I first saw the title of the post, I thought they were finally sending this Buddy up the river.
posted by ry at 8:34 AM on January 3, 2002

Socks wasn't driving the car.

Toonces the Driving Cat was.
posted by FullFrontalNerdity at 8:38 AM on January 3, 2002

Losing a pet, especially in an accident, is tough.

Time to update the Clinton body count...

Now, there's a Bush body count.

What goes around, comes around, ya know.
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 9:23 AM on January 3, 2002

"here buddy, buddy, buddy"
posted by clavdivs at 9:31 AM on January 3, 2002

Labs are wonderful dogs and often get seperation issues when left alone for long periods. My Labs go crazy when I come home from work. They are also escape artists that would make Doug Henning proud. Poor Buddy...
posted by Macboy at 10:23 AM on January 3, 2002

Where's Linda Tripp?
posted by aacheson at 10:24 AM on January 3, 2002

pauvre chien : (
posted by ParisParamus at 10:31 AM on January 3, 2002

:(
posted by moz at 10:43 AM on January 3, 2002

::pours out liquor::

expect his posthumous album soon, with the never-before-heard-mastered-remixed song, featuring DMX and Snoop Dogg, Bills and Bitches.

pardon the vulgarity...
posted by lotsofno at 10:56 AM on January 3, 2002

monkeyjuice made a funny.
posted by goneill at 11:42 AM on January 3, 2002

I suspest a grassy knoll in there somewhere. Maybe we should call in the remaining members of the Warren commision to figure this one out....
posted by tiger yang at 1:31 PM on January 3, 2002

The only member of the Clinton family that I respected, and someone goes and runs him over. As the man once said, ain't that about a bitch? Poor Buddy. RIP.
posted by Dreama at 1:39 PM on January 3, 2002

With a couple of exceptions, what a lame bunch you all are.
posted by y2karl at 1:45 PM on January 3, 2002

I never understood why stuff like this makes the news.
posted by Nauip at 1:54 PM on January 3, 2002

As a reality check, anyone who, even for a moment, suspected foul play, should be disqualified from judging the ex-President for paranoia.

Chocolate Labs: they seem significantly higher strung than black or yellow labs. True?
posted by ParisParamus at 2:10 PM on January 3, 2002

True. Chocolate contains a lot of sugar and caffeine.
posted by msacheson at 2:28 PM on January 3, 2002

Someone's pet died, its actually sad and its certainly not an appropriate excuse to shill for PETA.

It's not "someone" - it's the former President of the United States and the present junior New York Senator. I agree it's totally sad -- it would be "appropriate" if these two owned up to something every once in a while.
posted by boardman at 2:53 PM on January 3, 2002

With a couple of exceptions, what a lame bunch you all are.

Thank god for y2karl. I'd hate to read a whole MeFi thread without an insult of some kind.
posted by diddlegnome at 4:25 PM on January 3, 2002

Right. People all across the world are grieving, but most are saying to themselves: I really fucking don't care
posted by fuq at 4:48 PM on January 3, 2002

Thank god for y2karl. I'd hate to read a whole MeFi thread without an insult of some kind.

i didn't really read it as an insult.. actually got a smile out of me, as i imagined it said in the same tone as "you sir, are a bastard."
posted by lotsofno at 5:21 PM on January 3, 2002

i didn't really read it as an insult.

Ah. OK. That makes sense, too.
posted by diddlegnome at 5:26 PM on January 3, 2002

Y'know if Bill Clinton had gotten a turtle for a buddy, this tragic event never would have happened. It has been widely documented that it takes turtles three years to chase after a contractor.

As a dog owner and a dog lover, I view this terrible tragedy the same way I viewed the death of John Lennon. Yoko's still alive. Socks is still alive.

There is no justice in this world.
posted by ZachsMind at 8:57 PM on January 3, 2002

Buddy remembered by his surprisingly lush cartoon cartoon career.
posted by rotifer at 6:36 AM on January 4, 2002

This morning, the Today Show was publicising the name of the driver and showing a blurry mugshot-esque picture of her. She's a 17 year old girl, and they're treating her like someone involved in the hit and run death of a child. Yes, it's tragic, but dogs get hit every day and there's absolutely no indication that she was aiming for the animal -- she's getting the shaft because of who owned (and didn't control) the dog, and that's beyond unfortunate. If my beloved poodle got run over this afternoon, I wouldn't even be able to get the police here to say "Sorry, ma'am."
posted by Dreama at 7:01 AM on January 4, 2002

Exactly, Dreama; I couldn't see the police involvement over a run-over dog, and I doubt anyone seriously thinks it wasn't an accident. I'm a little surprised that it's getting this much attention both in the media and on MeFi, but anything, I guess, to put Clinton in the headlines again, and Dog (as in Lincoln's Mother's Doctor's Dog) is one of those words which also provokes emotional response, so there you have it.
I see the Buddy story is #7 in the blogdex top links...
posted by StOne at 8:09 AM on January 4, 2002

(Actually, 2 other Buddy stories from other news sites were also in the Blogdex. This one edged out #8, CIA Using Mariah Carey Movie in Al Qaeda Interrogations .)
posted by StOne at 8:19 AM on January 4, 2002

The line exists, stop trying to blur it.

The line (between the personal and the political) was crossed as soon as someone posted a link about Clinton on Metafilter. I didn't see a post about John Smith's dog being unfortunately killed in Littletown, IA. And isn't every link a potential "shill" if you disagree with that link? I'll shut up now. Onto better things.
posted by boardman at 9:04 AM on January 4, 2002