Creeping respect for Obama on National Review Online!

Now I admit it is on a very minor point and is pretty tepid, but it is surely the nose of the camel under the tent, as we say. Still, Lisa Schiffren at the Corner writes:

It's trivial, I know, but here is the one place I have seen a glimmer of our President-elect's personality, where I have just totally identified with him and his attitude: In an interview with Barbara Walters, who has just such a frou-frou pooch, he said,

Obama: "It sounds kinda like a girly dog."

Michelle: "We're girls. We have a house full of girls."

Obama: "We're going to have a big rambunctious dog, of some sort."

Facing the same question — which dog to get for my daughters, one of whom needs a hypoallergenic breed, and without the advantage of a large household staff to take care of it when they don't, — I have been torn between their desire for a tiny, cute, doll of a thing, and my deep conviction that dogs should not be cats. I want the Irish Setter of my own childhood, not some hybrid "shnoodle." In fact, I find Obama's resistence to the current fashion of manicured, blow-dried little white lap dogs charming, inspiring even. I'm the adult. I'll make that decision, damn it. Since I'm the one who is going to walk the thing.

It's only a matter of time before Schiffren gets booted off the Corner like those other liberal traitors like Christopher Buckley and Kathleen Parker.

well, no one can claim that Clemens' dog, the little lummox, is a girly dog. Insane maybe.