AN ‘UNEXAMINED’ DYNASTY?…. The NYT’s Nicholas Kristof, who usually doesn’t write too much about domestic politics, today tackles the question of family dynasties and the White House.
In a presidential campaign that has involved battles over everything from Iraq to driver’s licenses, one sweeping topic has gone curiously unexamined: Does it diminish American democracy if we keep the presidency in the same two families that have held it since 1989?
If Hillary Rodham Clinton serves two terms, then for 28 years the presidency will have been held by a Bush or a Clinton. By that point, about 40 percent of Americans would have lived their entire lives under a president from one of these two families.
Wouldn’t that make our democracy seem a little, er, Pakistani?
People can certainly draw their own conclusions about the two-family phenomenon — I’ve heard Clinton respond to questions about it many times — but how on earth is this a “curiously unexamined” question? The NYT itself has written about this many times.
In fact, I checked Google for the words “Clinton dynasty” and found over 400,000 results.
I get the sense Kristof is bursting through an open door on this one.
