The Cat in the Hat which George W. Bush's State of the Union promises were contrasted with the Cat vowing (in part), "I can hold up the cup and the milk and the cake! I can hold up these books! And the fish on a rake!" In 2007, during the 110th Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid compared the impasse over a bill to reform immigration with the mess created by the Cat. He read lines of the book from the Senate floor. He then carried forward his analogy hoping the impasse would be straightened out for "If you go back and read Dr. Seuss,
The Cat in the Hat most important academic controversy" of the Cold War era. Academic Louis Menand contends that ""The Cat in the Hat" transformed the nature of primary education and the nature of children's books. It not only stood for the idea that reading ought to be taught by phonics; it also stood for the idea that language skills—and many other subjects—ought to be taught through illustrated storybooks, rather than primers and textbooks." In 1983, Geisel told Jonathan Cott, "It is the book I'm proudest of because it had something to do with the death of the "Dick and Jane" primers." The book led