Chip Reid and Imus Talk Dogs, Democrats, and Delusional Thinking

Why talk to CBS News’s Chief White House Correspondent Chip Reid about icky politics when you can talk to him about his dog, your dog, and loving dogs in general?

That was the approach Imus took today with Reid, who phoned in from home with his dog Buster, a half-Boxer, half-Rhodesian Ridgeback mutt, seated by his side.

“A friend of ours found his mother by the side of the road in a rainstorm, took her home, and a few weeks later she gave birth to nine puppies,” Reid said. “Then the mother died after giving birth to these nine puppies, and our dog Buster was the runt.”

The proud owner of approximately six dogs, four of which are Great Pyrenees who live out at the Imus Ranch, Imus, sensing a kindred spirit in Reid, relayed the story of how his son came to meet Lucinda, a Blue Heeler.

“Wyatt says he wants to rescue a dog, so we go to the Humane Society in Santa Fe,” Imus said, and described how the dogs were all enclosed behind a three-foot high wall, yapping away. “This one dog jumps over the wall and chases him down the hallway! So the dog picked him.”

Another man with a dog, President Obama, is doing fine, Reid said, as is the rest of Washington, DC, now that former White House Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel high-tailed it back to Chicago to run for mayor.

“Washington just feels like a much safer place now that Rahm’s in Chicago,” Reid said, but noted that Emanuel’s reputation for bad behavior was often exaggerated. “Rahm always treated the media with great respect, despite his reputation for screaming and yelling and stabbing people in the next with pencils. He actually has a very gentle side.”

The Obama administration, he told Imus, understands that the Democrats are going to get “pretty slammed” in this year’s midterm elections, but they’re holding out for a miracle.

“Publicly and even privately, they will tell you they think they’re going to hold on to the House and the Senate,” he said.

Though Reid thinks they’ll lose the House and hold the Senate, that outcome is not necessarily a bad one, as former President Bill Clinton pointed out recently.

“If the Democrats lose the House, it dramatically increases his chances of reelection,” Reid said of Obama. “Because he gets to use Republicans as a foil for the next two years.”

That mindset worries Imus, who called it “delusional thinking.”

Finally, something new in Washington, DC.

-Julie Kanfer