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 "small, stooped woman wearing 'a leather half-glove and a secret smile'". Anita Silvey, recounting a similar story, described the woman as "a very elegant, very petite African-American woman named Annie Williams". Geisel told Silvey that, when he sketched the Cat in the Hat, he thought of Williams and gave the character Williams' white gloves and "sly, even foxy smile". Geisel gave two conflicting, partly fictionalized accounts of the book's creation in two articles, "How Orlo Got His Book" in "The New York Times Book Review" and "My Hassle with the First Grade Language" in the "Chicago Tribune", both published on