"He Just Shrugged"

This was a good post by Paul Krugman, playing off a Glenn Greewald post, which in turn quoted a Peggy Noonan column from 2004 about George Bush (getting multiple regression vertigo yet?). Here is the Noonan quote:

Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man. He's normal. He thinks in a sort of common-sense way. He speaks the language of business and sports and politics. You know him. He's not exotic. But if there's a fire on the block, he'll run out and help. He'll help direct the rig to the right house and count the kids coming out and say, "Where's Sally?"

Krugman comments:

What Greenwald doesn't point out is that a year later there really was a fire on the block--or, literally, a flood in New Orleans. And Bush didn't run out and help--in fact, his aides had to make a special DVD of horrifying clips from TV news to get his attention. And what he said when he finally made an appearance wasn't "Where's Sally?"--it was "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Too true. It reminded me that I just stumbled across a classic illustration of the Bush personality, as accurately captured by Krugman, in, of all things, the airline magazine Hemispheres. It appeared in this interview with a Scottish-born celebrity photographer named Harry Benson. The story is brief:

Q: Right after you became a U.S. citizen, you photographed George W. Bush for the first time, when he was running for president. What was that like?

A: I went to the governor's office in Texas, and he was there with a golf club, practicing his swing. I told him that I had just become an American citizen, and he just shrugged. But a moment later, it must have occurred to him because he turned and pointed his golf club at me and said, "That means you can vote, and I am asking for your vote." I said, "Well, let's just see how it goes today, Gov. Bush."

Says it all, doesn't it? Bush couldn't even be bothered to congratulate somone on becoming an American--until Bush realized it meant the guy could do something to benefit him. That's how Bush measures people: purely in terms of their usefulness to George W. Bush. Thank God 2008 will be our last full year of having to see this man leading our country and representing it to the world.

Peggy Noonan Frets About the Power of Political Families--Or At Least One of Them

As you know, the Bushes are the fourth family to have members of two generations serve in the U.S. presidency, the others being the Adamses, the Harrisons, and the Roosevelts. Along with the Kennedys--who had only one president but who have had several senators and representatives over two generations--these are generally considered the great American political dynasties.

Now there is a strong possibility that a second member of the Clinton family will be elected president. This doesn't really qualify as a "dynasty," since we are not talking about a second generation. And unlike all those true dynasties we just listed, the Clintons did not inherit position, wealth, or fame. Still, it's unusual and notable that a second Clinton might serve in the White House less than a decade after her husband. And this has our serious thinkers deeply concerned:

It is the nature of modern politics. A political family gains allies--retainers, supporters, hangers-on, admirers, associates, in-house Machiavellis. The bigger the government, the more ways allies can be awarded, which binds them more closely. Your destiny is theirs. Members of the court recruit others. Money lines spread person to person, company to company, board to board, mover to mover.

The most important part is the money lines. Power is expensive. The second most important part is the word "winner." The Bushes are winners; the Clintons are winners. We know this, they've won. The Bushes are wired into the Republican money-line system; the Clintons are wired into the Democratic money-line system. For a generation, two generations now, they have had the same dynamics in play, only their friends are on the blue team, not the red, or the red, not the blue.

They are, both groups, up and ready and good to go every election cycle. They are machines. There are good people on each side, idealists, the hopeful, those convinced the triumph of their views will make our country better. And there are those on each side who are not so wonderful, not so well-meaning, not well-meaning at all. And some are idiots, but very comfortable ones.

Is this good for our democracy, this air of inevitability? Is it good in terms of how the world sees us, and how we see ourselves? Or is it something we want to break out of, like a trance?

It would be understandable if they were families of a most extraordinary natural distinction and self-sacrifice. But these are not the Adamses of Massachusetts we're talking about. You've noticed, right?

Peggy Noonan isn't the only right-wing concern troll to furrow her brow about this topic lately. And of course they are all motivated by sincere worries about the future of democracy, the evil effects of concentrated power, the shallowness of a public that can't seem to get beyond mere family ties--right?

Then again, it seems a bit odd that no one on the right ever expressed any concern over the perpetuation of the Bush dynasty into a third generation (remember that paterfamilias Prescott Bush actually launched the sequence back in the 1950s). They haven't even uttered a peep of protest over the many, many suggestions that Jeb will someday be the third Bush president.

I guess, for some odd, purely coincidental reason, only Democratic dynasties raise these serious historical concerns about the course of our Republic.