Mr Palau, another great article. Under all the derison one comes away with thee understanding of what a family where the parrents provide love and ultimate love which is to give total freedom to their children to chose a life course. That is the story of this story. The Kenedy's and the Adam's were families of love? with directives of life and expectations.
There is to this dynasty, some complain, none of the outsized grandeur
and vaulting ambition of the Kennedys, or the patrician jauntiness of
the Roosevelts, cousins Franklin and Teddy. Which is true. But one
could as easily argue that the Bushes are unburdened, too, by the
hubris, arrogance and taste for self-inflicted tragedy that has sunk
the better known dynasties.
Joseph Kennedy, the family patriarch, wielded his money with a
snarling and overbearing authority; the threat, always, was that he
could buy and destroy you. Old man Rockefeller was no different. He
divided the world into that portion where he owned oil wells, and the
benighted remainder.
The Bushes are quieter, more reticent. Prescott, the WASP patriarch,
ritually downplayed any hint of wealth, content to hide his pedigree
in a camouflage of genteel shabbiness. He liked to tell interviewers
that his father, Samuel, "had a modest income . . . he couldn't
support his adult children."
None of his children, noted family biographer Herbert S. Parmet, paid
the old man's protestations much mind. They knew their wealth, and
they saw little political percentage in talking about it.
Perhaps it's a rule of dynasties that they blow a generational gasket
when they try too hard. Wittmann says: "It's almost as if you want to
plan a dynasty, it fails."
A lot different than wacko Gore.
Tom Watson tosiwmee |
