VLVL2 Bush: NYRB article worth reading

[pynchonoid]

[...]  the Bush dynasty differs from other American
families that have mixed wealth with political
prominence. While the Kennedys and the Rockefellers
may have a sense of entitlement, they also display a
sense of noblesse oblige—what one might call an urge
to repay, with charitable contributions and public
service, their good fortune. The Bushes don't have
that problem; there are no philanthropists or
reformers in the clan. They seek public office but, if
anything, they seem to feel that the public is there
to serve them. 

[...] And George W. Bush, as the scion of this
dynasty, is the first president to, in effect, inherit
the office. For four generations the Bush family has
thrived by exploiting its political connections,
especially in the secret world of intelligence, to get
ahead in business, as well as exploiting its business
connections, especially in finance and oil, to get
ahead in politics.

[...] As someone once pointed out, it's a lot easier
to document links between the bin Laden family and the
Bushes than it is to document links between the bin
Ladens and Saddam Hussein.

[...] So what is the state of the union? Let Phillips
have the last word:

The advent of a Machiavelli-inclined dynasty in what
may be a Machiavellian Moment for the American
Republic is not a happy coincidence.... National
governance has, at least temporarily, moved away from
the proven tradition of a leader chosen
democratically, by a majority or plurality of the
electorate, to the succession of a dynastic heir whose
unfortunate inheritance is privileged, covert, and
globally embroiling.

...read it all:
Volume 51, Number 3 · February 26, 2004
The Wars of the Texas Succession
By Paul Krugman
<http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16911>


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