Where presidents come from.
Noam Scheiber makes fun of Tad Devine for suggesting in a Wall Street Journal piece that Al Gore won't run for president again because he's too successful in private life. Scheiber responds:
Good point! After all, the people who run for president are normally down-on-their-luck types who've washed out of multiple jobs and are just hoping to land some generous government benefits and three square meals a day...
Wait. Doesn't that basically describe the current president... failed oilman... semi-successful baseball team owner... no apparent ambition until he turned 40... affably took up the family tradition... at least a little bit? Or am I missing Scheiber's irony?
Good point! After all, the people who run for president are normally down-on-their-luck types who've washed out of multiple jobs and are just hoping to land some generous government benefits and three square meals a day...
Wait. Doesn't that basically describe the current president... failed oilman... semi-successful baseball team owner... no apparent ambition until he turned 40... affably took up the family tradition... at least a little bit? Or am I missing Scheiber's irony?
2 Comments:
I don't think Scheiber's being ironic. I think he just has to pretend Bush doesn't exist for the sake of his point. Bush is the glaring exception that proves the rule. Even Warren Harding had a pre-Presidential life of some achievement.
In the future nobody's going to believe we elected this guy in the first place, nevermind re-elected him.
His resume was entirely predictive of his Presidency and yet the only part of it the Media ever focused on was his supposed saving by Jesus.
I think he was being sarcastic, but not about Bush, but about the author.
To be a successful politician it is increasingly helpful to be rich and well connected, or possibly both, ideally belonging to a rich and well connected family.
Most successful politicians of all become presidents... :-)
Sure, there are exceptions, where politicians end up becoming rich through politics, but look at how easier it is for the Gores, the Kennedys, the Bushes, and so on.
And the Clintons (but for the founder of the dynasty) of course :-). Perhaps Chelsea will be able to bank on her family name too, and become president some decades from now. You read it here first :-).
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