This is our cat Jackpot doing his Julius Caesar impression this morning. I forgot to tell him to "Beware the Ides of March."

"Beware the Ides of March."

What a great soundbite. If William Shakespeare were living today, he'd surely be inducted into the political spin-zone as a guy who knows how to make public opinion shift.

"Beware the Ides of March" is the line he wrote for a soothsayer — the character of a first century psychic in an Elizabethan-era play. She said it to warn Caesar of the conspiracy against him. It's short and catchy, suspenseful and a little gossipy without evidence or detail — perfect for the news of today.

Can't you imagine the montage of pundits and anchors repeating the line again and again? Like an ad campaign, branded. But with plausible deniability about spreading propaganda, because it's merely reporting what some wise oracle said.

Jackpot here doesn't fall for that kind of drama. My little thespian is a satirist at heart. Sure, it happens to be true that Caesar was assassinated on March 15th, and that some accounts of history say he was warned of it. But Jackpot knows that if ancient Roman news producers had given this prediction any attention on the 14th, they would've just been using it as a talking-point to promote agenda, not reporting fact. Before the Ides of March, it would have been about the march of political chides, skewed depending on your demographic.

Beware the march of chides.

Short and catchy, suspenseful and a little gossipy without evidence or detail — perfect for the blog post of the day.

I know - some of you think I'm exploiting my cute cat. You think he was just napping and I happened to catch him in a Shakespearean pose. Then how do you explain why he's standing at the food bowl reciting Friends Romans Countrymen right now? I must go lend him my ear. He only gives speeches when he needs something.