-Caveat Lector-
>From slate.com
""George W. Bush jokes that his father's idea of a perfect son
is Al Gore Jr.""
>
> strange bedfellow
>
> And So's Your Old Man: Why isn't George W. more like his dad?
>
> By David Plotz
>
>
> Stories about Republican President-designate George W. Bush
> invariably note that he has spent most of his life doing exactly
> what his father, former President George H.W. Bush, once did.
> This is not quite right. W. has spent most of his life doing
> exactly what his father did, but doing it worse. He is a chip off
> the old block, chipped.
>
> Poppy Bush starred at Andover. W. lazed his way through the prep
> school. The father motored through Yale in two and a half years,
> earning a Phi Beta Kappa key along the way. The son squeaked
> through old Eli. Poppy, like his own father Sen. Prescott Bush
> before him, captained the Yale baseball team and joined the
> secret society Skull & Bones. W. wasn't good enough to play ball
> for Yale. And though he joined Skull & Bones, he whiled away his
> nights with a much less refined group, the hard-drinking frat
> brothers of DKE.
>
>
> The elder Bush enlisted in the Navy in 1942, became the service's
> youngest fighter pilot, flew 58 missions in the South Pacific,
> was shot down over enemy waters, and won the Distinguished Flying
> Cross. The son also became a fighter pilot--for the Texas Air
> National Guard. He spent the Vietnam War flying "missions" over
> the Texas scrub.
>
> W. followed his father's path into the oil business. Both
> abandoned New England for West Texas to strike it rich. Both
> relied on rich friends for a head start, but whereas the old man
> scored in his oilfields, the son struggled. George H.W. ran for
> Congress and won. George W. ran for Congress and lost. Come
> middle age, the father threw himself into public service: U.N.
> ambassador, China ambassador, CIA director. The son threw himself
> into baseball, as an executive for the Texas Rangers.
>
> (Americans tend to forget the heroic life of President Bush. This
> was one of his unfortunate talents: He could make the
> extraordinary seem mundane.)
>
> There are competing theories about what the son's pale imitation
> of a resume signifies. The first, popular among Gov. Bush's fans,
> is that he's a late bloomer. It took him till his mid-40s to
> settle down, but now that he has he is making up for his lost
> years and surpassing the father he has so long trailed. After
> all, he has won a statewide race in Texas twice. Poppy lost both
> his statewide campaigns in Texas. Junior has already vanquished
> former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, the woman who ridiculed his
> father in 1988. Now he will topple Al Gore, half the team that
> battered Dad in 1992. The other, less charitable, theory surmises
> that just as W. has tried to equal his father and fallen short,
> so he'll find some way to choke in the presidential election.
>
> It's far too early to take sides on this question or to draw
> grand psychological conclusions about how the father will shadow
> the son's presidential campaign. But there is another way to look
> at W.'s knockoff resume: as a documentary of a generational
> change in American politics.
>
> Brookings Institution scholar Stephen Hess, author of America's
> Political Dynasties, notes that American political dynasties come
> in all sizes and flavors. In some, a family from humble origins
> uses political success to make itself rich and snooty. In some, a
> dynasty is stolidly consistent across generations. The Tafts of
> Ohio, for instance, have been steady Republican burghers for more
> than a century.
>
> The Bushes started as a noblesse oblige dynasty. Prescott Bush
> began his (forgettable) service as a senator only after a long
> career as a gentleman banker. He viewed his political activity as
> an obligation, and he instilled that sentiment in his son George.
> Poppy was dutiful in pursuit of office, compiling the requisite
> experience almost mechanically, adding line after line to his
> resume until America had no choice but to elect him president.
> Politics was always a duty, never a pleasure. (Remember the
> horror of hearing George Bush ingratiating himself with voters by
> calling them "my main man" and the like?)
>
> But what began as noblesse oblige has morphed into something
> different during this generation. The Bushes are a microcosm of
> the transformation of Republican politics from Northeastern
> elitism to Western populism. The son's failure to match his
> father reflects this small-D democratization. Bush the elder came
> of age when New England Republicans led the party, and patrician
> manners were boons to a Republican. But in an era when a
> politician's ability to communicate trumps anything else and the
> balance of Republican power has shifted west, the preppy,
> Anglican ethos that defined the old man is suspect. (George W.
> Bush spent his 1978 congressional campaign excusing his father's
> membership in the Trilateral Commission.) In today's politics,
> the son's checkered resume signifies success. By choosing DKE
> over Skull & Bones, drinking over studying, baseball over the
> United Nations, George W. compiled a record that suits our
> populist age.
>
> W. has bartered the high-status accomplishments of his father for
> something more precious: regular guyness. He is warm and
> impulsive where his father was distant and calculating. Every
> story about the son applauds his democratic instincts, his ease
> with all kinds of people, his ebullience and physicality, his
> informality. His passionate Methodism contrasts with his
> ancestors' chilly Episcopalianism.
>
> The Gore dynasty, oddly, has followed the opposite path. Al Gore
> Jr. has outdone his senator father in the calculus of political
> achievement, but the veep is stiff and awkward and dutiful in a
> way that his impulsive, backslappy dad never was. George W. Bush
> jokes that his father's idea of a perfect son is Al Gore Jr. This
> may be America's choice in 2000: the George W. Bush who isn't
> George H.W. Bush, or the Al Gore who is.
A<>E<>R
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