No, this will not be another 'don't support the dynasty' diary. I refuse to use such a weak excuse as a rationale to prop up my own preference schedule which I feel is powerful enough without the weak wooden prop of 'dynasty' added in. This diary is instead about the abhorrant and contemptible Op-Ed column I read in todays Wall Street Journal.
As a dedicated member of the modern American left -- or as I like to call us, the last guards of Democracy -- I can safely say that nothing enrages me more then seeing some Wall Street idiot opine that "the trend to royalism may not be all bad.".
Mr. Barone has a history of poorly written columns, but this elitist drivel he has spewed forth today has driven me over the edge. Mr. Barone, what you are suggesting is ludicruous and stupid; some of America's greatest leaders have been those common men whom you seem so fond of attempting to remove from potentially holding political power.
To summarize the abortion to common sense that Michael Barone calls an Op-Ed column I will say this: "It's a Monarchy Stupid!".
And now, I give you the paragraphs that have made me incandescent with some incredibly angry and righteous rage:
So the trend to royalism may not be all bad. It does give some candidates an unfair advantage over others. But let's face it: Only four of the 300 million living Americans has been president and probably only 10 or 12 more ever will be. We need as much knowledge of our presidential candidates as we can get and, if we get some of it by knowing their families as closely as we know the families of recent occupants of the White House, so be it. As Bagehot put it, "The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other."
. . .
In any case, it's no sure thing that a Clinton will follow a Bush who followed a Clinton who followed a Bush. But keep the following in the back of your mind. George P. Bush will be eligible to run for president in 2012. Chelsea Clinton will be eligible to run for president in 2016. So will Jenna and Barbara Bush, who will turn 35 several days after the election. And Jeb Bush, who had a fine record in eight years as governor of Florida, will be younger in 2024 than John McCain will be in 2008 or Ronald Reagan was in 1984. Royalism may be here to stay.
Michael Barone
America fought a revolution to get away from this sort of thing. A Government by and for the people was what we got. The Sons of Liberty and the Soldiers who fought in all our wars -- foreign and domestic -- fought so that we, The People, could live in a Democracy where the 'divine right' of kings was an old abandoned anachronistic invention of antiquity that had no place in our country.
By suggesting that Jenna and not Jenna are capable of running the country at any point is absolute insanity in it's purest form. America deserves better. America deserves another Lincoln, not the overprivileged daughters of a family that found its fortune at the expense of European Civilians confined to concentration camps.
Simply put, America breaks down into two camps -- the Monarchists and the anti-Monarchists, because that is what the American Right and Wall Street want: Monarchy. It is up to oppose them every step of the way, because without that the sacrifices of America's finest will have been in vain. We built our Democracy on the ideal that there would be no nobility -- our nations Founding Fathers even put it in the Constitution. Our Democracy was built (to paraphrase Huey Long) on the ideal that every man could be a king but no man would wear a crown (an ideal that thankfully has been expanded to include women). Our Democracy was built on the idea that society should be measured by the success of those at it's base rather than those at it's apex (to paraphrase Andrew Jackson). Those very ideals are under attack today by people like Mr. Barone. I would call them fascists, but it is such a loaded word these days, so I call them what they are: Monarchists.
It is our job to stop this madness now. It started with Reagan, it stops now. Anything less would be an abdication of our civic responsibility to this country.