CPR 10-9-2012  SECOND NIGHT OF DEBATE NECESSITATES FACT CHECKING

The second night of the debate was not without its controversy.  The campaigns 
of Barkbark Obama and Mutt Romney complained that the Moderator was showing bias 
and that the Fact Checking done by your reporter was similarly slanted towards 
the positions of Lady Emma.  Accordingly, the Pet Press has appointed a totally 
impartial panel to fact check the second night of the debate. (Photo 1)  The 
panel consists of Libby the Cat, Daisy the Cat, Jay Catsby, Gracie the Cat, and 
Lady Emma. (The inclusion of Lady Emma was done at the insistence of the rest of 
the panel, and was thought necessary because the rest of the pets on the panel 
had to sit in the audience at the North Shore Animal Shelter Auditorium, where 
the acoustics are not as good as they are on the stage of the Auditorium, where 
Lady Emma is situated, and hence is in the best position to hear the facts that 
need checking.  The first challenged factual assertion was the claim of Lady 
Emma that her opponents were serial hydrant piddlers whose piddling by 
implication would subvert the dem-o-catic process.  The Pet Fact Checking Panel 
assessed this claim by having Lady sniff the fire hydrant outside the North 
Shore Shelter Auditorium, and Lady reported that in fact the hydrant had been 
piddled on, serially, by Barkbark and Mutt.  So the panel concluded that this 
claim was "totally accurate", but  were nevertheless inclined to let Barkbark 
Obama and Mutt Romney off with a verbal warning, and no fine, except that Lady 
Emma claimed that during her gracious answer identifying her opponents as serial 
hydrant offenders, Barkbark and Mutt were seen "fuming", and that there is 
nothing more hazardous to public pet health than piddle fumes, which is of 
course why cats use sanitized deodorized litter boxes.  Further, Lady Emma 
noted, the Mutt and Barkbark campaigns contested her promise to appoint outside 
the box thinkers to her Head Pet Administration, by claiming that Lady Emma had 
no intention of appointing Bonnie the Cat to her administration.  However, the  
Pet Fact Checking Panel determined that the fair preponderance of the 
photographic evidence in fact established that Bonnie the Cat never did leave 
her box (Photos 2 and 3), so whether or not Lady would fulfill her promise to 
appoint Bonnie to her cabinet was moot and how dare Barkbark and Mutt make a 
campaign issue out of poor Bonnie's social problems and her out of the box 
agoraphobia.  (Of course, it would be angoraphobia if she were a different breed 
of cat, such as a sheep, but that the Pet Fact Checking Panel felt was equally 
offensive to Bonnie--she's no sheep!)