-Caveat Lector-
<http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/tvaradarajan/?id=85000639>
CITIZEN OF THE WORLD
Bush's Breeding
In praise of political dynasties
BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN
Monday, February 26, 2001 12:01 a.m. EST
I write this week in praise of American political dynasties, and
to give thanks that George W. Bush belongs to one such family. In
order to explain why, I need to use Bill Clinton as a
counterpoint. For those of you who are tired of the latter's
name, and who wish that we could all "just move on," I promise
that my resort to the ex-president is not gratuitous.
Before becoming president, Mr. Bush endured a gush of dismissive
talk about being the privileged scion of a political dynasty.
The boorish Maureen Dowd dubbed him "Little Bush," jeering
repetitively about his "Poppy." Even his less intemperate critics
drew attention to the undeniable advantage conferred on Mr. Bush
by his situation as a past president's son. Those who favored him
looked always to nudge the focus away from his heritage--his
seigniory, if you like--and toward arguments and assertions that
Mr. Bush was his own man, an independent and substantial entity,
not a cipher grown large by virtue of his name alone.
Even Mr. Bush recoils from his own privileged condition. This is
to his credit, of course, proof of his dynastic fiber and
propriety as well as of his undeniable modesty. During the
campaign, his conscious folksiness, and the constant distancing
of himself from "Washington"--a reference employed in his
discourse, ironically, as a metaphor for Al Gore's
privilege--showed how desperate he was to script a less obtrusive
role for his father, and for things dynastic, than the one
perceived by Ms. Dowd and her ilk.
Mr. Bush was, in case the carpers didn't notice, constantly
scaling Poppy back. And his father, than whom there are few men
in America more gentlemanly, was entirely happy to have his scale
reduced, aware always that, though he lost some lines in the
script, his essential role was in no way diminished. Americans, I
think, appreciate the understatement.
Now for comparisons.
Mr. Clinton, it is clear, is not from a political family. Unlike
Mr. Bush, who is "in politics," Mr. Clinton is but a politician.
This is an important distinction, indicative as much of form as
of the deepest substance. When asked last week--in the wake of
revelations that both Hugh Rodham and Roger Clinton had played
inelegant roles in pardons granted by Mr. Clinton--whether he had
any advice for his own family, Mr. Bush said, simply: "Behave
yourself." These are words he need not have spoken, of course.
There can be no doubt that a Bush, whether of this generation, or
the last, or the next, or the one after that, will "behave"
himself in a political milieu.
Why? Some readers might find my use of the word "breeding"
old-fashioned, but I fear there is no substitute. The Bushes have
impeccable political breeding. Mr. Clinton has none. He is a
political parvenu; a sparkling man, no doubt, and a man of vast
intelligence, but he has no personal institutional memory.
Consequently, his lack of respect for institutions--for his own
office--came to be more pronounced. He wasn't to the manor born,
so the manor became to him a source not of comfort, or of calm,
or of a sense of service, but one of glee and fantasy and
vainglory. And these sentiments--this unseemly sense of having
"made it big," of having hit the jackpot--spread like a rash to
his wife, to his siblings, to his wife's siblings, to his
underlings, her underlings, their underlings.
Mr. Bush, for all the dire warnings we were given about his
intellect and about the irreparable harm of a court-ordered
victory, has slipped so smoothly into his role as president as to
suggest that high office runs in his blood. I detect, I think,
the purr of an atavistic motor. I detect the workings of a man
who is at peace with power, and with the stewardship of a nation.
Mr. Bush is at ease at the pinnacle, just as he was at ease,
earlier, with the inevitability of his rise.
Contrast Mr. Bush's comfort in office with Mr. Clinton's
luxuriation in it. This difference reveals the greatest paradox,
as well as the greatest difference between the two men. Mr.
Clinton, who took office the "hard way," had, from the start, a
bursting sense of entitlement. From Mr. Bush's privilege, by
contrast, flows a sense of sober authority, of a circumscribed
trusteeship.
Whom would you rather have as president? The privileged man, or
the entitled one?
Mr. Varadarajan is deputy editorial features editor of The Wall
Street Journal. His column appears Mondays.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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