If George W. Bush came from a blue collar middle class background (like Clinton, Nixon, Reagan, Truman) do you think he has the ability to make it where he is today – or is the fact that his father is George Bush is the only reason he is going to be the next president of the United States?
(I know Gore’s father was also a US Senator – and that surely helped him – and Kennedy wouldn’t have been president without his father either)
My impression is that Bush is a spoiled rich kid. (That said, Bush, if he picks the right people can have a good administration – I am not debating if he will make a good president, just that his status in life got him to where he is)
No question, a famous name helped George W. Bush TREMENDOUSLY- but it was the NAME that helped him along, and not a string-pulling, puppet-master dad behind the scenes.
A politician with a famous name (whether it’s a Kennedy, a Bush, Andrew Cuomo, Hillary Clinton, Sonny Bono, Steve Largent, Tom Osborne, wheoever) has a huge advantage. An unknown politician must spend a fortune just to achieve name recognition, while an already-famous name guarantees you recognition before you’ve spent a cent.
Would George W. have been elected governor of TExas so easily if his name were George Smith? Of course not- but you think a carpetbagger named Hillary Jones would have been elected Senator in New York? George and Hillary were both ambitious people who knew their famous names gave them an advantage, and didn’t hesitate to USE that advantage.
ACtually, George W.'s father did NOT push him to the top of the heap, because it’s a badly kept secret that George the Elder always thought JEB was the son who’d go on to bigger and better things in politics. George W. surprised everyone, including his dad.
Not to mention, astorian, that Al Gore was not exactly harmed by being the son of a renowned elder statesman of the Senate. And that private school education he received in the tony suburbs of Washington as a child didn’t hurt, either.
Yeah, I think he is spoiled. He never ran a successful business, if some other “business man” did what Bush did he would’ve gone broke. He never had any successful businesses, he isn’t broke because he is spoiled.
His name got recognized a whole hell of a lot to be able to get out of Vietnam and his “youthful indiscretions.” You can call that “name recognition” if you want, I myself, prefer spoiled.
This is the same kind of crap the Republicans did to Clinton.
He’s our president now (well, next month), and nothing in his past is going to change that. Give the man a fresh start, and judge him on his performance as president. If he screws up as president call him on it. Now that the election is decided, I don’t care where he comes from or what he did in the past. He can even fuck sheep in the Lincoln Bedroom for all I care.
I despise “Clinton-haters” and I doubt I’ll have much tolerance for “Bush-bashers” either.
The radio show This American Life featured Shrub as the focus of a show on nepotism. It was quite enlightening. It was the November 3 show, and you can listen to the audio archive.
Robin
P.S.: And, yes, I do think he’s a spoiled rich boy.
Not only is he a spoiled rich boy, he is also the luckiest man alive - AND the poster boy for the dumbing down of America.
If 40% of the electorate is happy that a dimwitted frat boy who spent something like 60% of his adult life a freeloading drunk, was able to barely squeak into the Oval Office then we deserve a big-ass meteor.
I hope the Yippies can find a pot-bellied pig to run in 2004. If not now, when?