I often wonder what my cat, Lacy, does in the long hours I’m away at work. Today I had a clue. The minute I walked in the door she purred:

“What’s retroactive retirement?”

Clearly she had been reading the newspaper.

In case you haven’t been keeping up with the news like my cat has, “retroactive retirement” is what the Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney’s team is using to describe his exit from Bain Capital. He left, they say, in 1999 to run the Olympics committee and never came back thereby “retiring retroactively” in 1999.

President Barack Obama’s campaign is claiming Romney worked at Bain in 2002 and outsourced jobs.

How do you explain this to your cat?

Explaining Retroactive Retirement

I cut to the chase. “The campaigns are just trying to find some big ‘issue’ to use for the rest of the campaign. It seems kind of lame to me, but that’s how it goes.”

“You said that Mars in Libra would make them nice,” Lacy reminded me.

“Yes, I got that wrong,” I admitted. “I’ve probably given astrologers across the world a bad reputation,” I added. “But economists are wrong all the time and they still get respect.”

“So Mars in Libra has made them mean?” she asked, ever the astrology student.

“I forgot that Mars in Libra would create a T-square with Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn. I know they’re fighting, but it all seems kind of lame to me. I think James Carville and Karl Rove are on vacation. If this is the best they can come up with, it’s going to be one urine-filled campaign.”

“But the Washington Post reports that the Bain charge is sticking,” Lacy retorted.

“The Washington Post needs news like you need cat nip. It’s all they have. What else are they going to write about?”

Thinking about it I added, “Maybe the ‘demands for apology’ from Romney are the Mars in Libra manifestation. Pretending to be innocent and offended is very Libra. Libra is nothing if not mannered.”

“You don’t think Romney is truly offended?” Lacy asked.

“I bet he is,” I answered. “He’s got sun in Pisces and moon in Scorpio, both highly sensitive. The Obama campaign has followed up the Bain Capital charge with an entreaty for Romney to ‘stop whining.’ Someone in that campaign has read up about sensitive Pisces.”

“Maybe the charges aren’t so lame, then,” Lacy meowed. “Maybe they are setting up the strong Leo against the weak Pisces.”

“You’re too cynical for me,” Lacy. “I’d like to retroactively end this conversation. Tomorrow, no Washington Post for you. Be a cat and sleep through the election.”