I don't think Dowd's column is good. I think it's ghastly and off topic but since it was posted, and is an example of a very common sort of low standard journalism that folk post here, I thought why not do a proper job of looking at it critically?
Poppy Bush was always gracious to me, even though he hated getting tweaked about being a patrician and complained that journalists cared more about class than he did.
Almost certainly true. Well, true in Dowd's case.
The Bushes see the world through the prism of class, while denying that class matters. They think as long as they don't act "snotty" or swan around with a lot of fancy possessions, that class is irrelevant.
It would appear that when it comes to real accomplishment, class is irrelevant.
They make themselves happily oblivious to the difference between thinking you are self-made and being self-made, between liking to clear brush and having to clear brush.
In their cases she's saying their hard work doesn't count because they have advantages. Unlike Dowd, a moral, or merely intelligent, person would say, "Good for them, they haven't wasted their opportunities and have faced up the obligations of their position."
In a 1986 interview with George senior and George junior, then still a drifting 40-year-old, The Washington Post's Walt Harrington asked the vice president how his social class shaped his life, noting that families like the Bushes often send their kids to expensive private schools to ensure their leg up.
Perhaps they do it to ensure "the leg up" but might well also
do it in hopes that the extra rigour might save their children from the perils of inherited class position. Bush Jr had a close call with that.
Harrington asked the vice president how his social class shaped his life, noting that families like the Bushes often send their kids to expensive private schools to ensure their leg up.
"This sounds, well, un-American to George Jr., and he rages that it is crap from the 60's. Nobody thinks that way anymore!"
Sounds as if Bush Jr was a bit defensive just then but perhaps he perceived the question as an attack on his father and his response was an effort to get the reporter up to date beyond certain 19th century marxist positions regarding class warfare.
"But his father cuts him off. . . . He seems genuinely interested. . . . But the amazing thing is that Bush finds these ideas so novel. . . . People who work the hardest ? even though some have a head start ? will usually get ahead, he says. To see it otherwise is divisive."
Bush Sr was more tactful and certainly more experienced with this sort of thing. But notice he nailed Harrington, and by extension, Dowd, to the wall with two reasonably true statements: "People who work hardest..." and "To see it otherwise...." We should also note also that Bush Sr did not deny his advantages.
The Bushes seem to believe that the divisive thing in American society is dwelling on social and economic inequities, rather than the inequities themselves.
They're not socialists. Most Americans are not socialists and don't expect the society to be levelled either by government or some sort of voluntary divestment by those who have advantages. Most believe if they extend themselves they can attain a better position than they have at present and don't seem to envy the accomplished and rich - in fact they seem to celebrate them to such a degree that celebrity itself has become an industry. It appears to me the Bushes are far more mainstream than Harrington or Dowd.
When critics of W.'s tax cuts say they favor the wealthy, the president indignantly accuses them of class warfare. That's designed to intimidate critics by making them seem vaguely pinko.
Tax cuts are advantageous to everyone. They stimulate prosperity and increased employment. Bush's criticism is accurate if it's designed to show a socialist bent - the folk who deplore tax cuts are pinko. Either that or they don't understand economics.
Besides, there's nothing more effective than deploring class warfare while ensuring that your class wins. It is the Bush tax cut that is fomenting class warfare.
There is no question that well off people do well out of a tax cut, but so do poor folk and that is undeniable - they have more disposable income than before and the longer effect of the cuts means there will be greater employment opportunites for them than before. Dowd doesn't like the American dream: through hard work, turning up every day, you can better yourself, and increase your material and social well being individually and collectively.
When the University of Michigan tries to redress a historic racial injustice by giving some advantage based on race, Mr. Bush gets offended by arbitrarily conferred advantages, as if he himself were not an affirmative-action baby.
That's John's and Bill's baby though I've a comment further down.
The president's preferred way of promoting diversity in higher education is throwing money at black colleges, which is not exactly a clarion call for integration.
Some traditionally black colleges had very small endowments, didn't they? Evening that up would improve the country's 'educational stock' wouldn't it? Those colleges are integrated now if they are to get federal funds, I assume.
For all the talk about how Republicans were morally re-educated by the Trent Lott fiasco, Mr. Bush is still pandering to an unspoken racial elitism.
She hasn't proven this well, if at all. She does point out that he is keeping his fences mended with worser aspects of his party and the South but he does need political support.
He resubmitted the nomination of a federal judge with a soft spot for cross-burners.
Not a great move, if true.
And, as Time notes this week, he quietly reinstituted the practice ? which lapsed under his father in 1990 ? of sending a floral wreath on Memorial Day from the White House to the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, where those nostalgic for the Old South celebrate Jefferson Davis. Why on earth would the president of the U.S. in the year 2003 take the trouble to do that?
The Civil war killed a lot of citizens on both sides. It is called by some the War Between the Brothers. Nothing wrong with conciliation. I notice the veterans and descendants of both sides of WW2 and Vietnam visit each other. No doubt some Davis fans are racist but it's also right to take the high ground.
Back in '86, when the Post reporter suggested that class mattered, W. found the contention un-American.
Framing it as a matter of social strife is un-American. Class is important but not that way. Class is a means of recognizing accomplishment that's broadly admired and it's a vehicle for social mobility and peace. Certainly some folk inherit the advantages of their ancestors' accomplishment but they have to make room for newcomers and they have to strive with them.
But isn't it un-American if the University of Michigan or Yale makes special room for the descendants of alumni but not the descendants of the disadvantaged?
No.
If I were a descendant of a disadvantaged family, I would prefer to be admitted to a college on my own merits, not that of my family's deficits.
That's American.
I do recognize, in terms of alumni, that universities do want and need endowments, and the great source of those is alumni - that is to say the university's community - and a family's connection to the university community will be very sentimental and therefore strong. If I were admitted to a school on the basis of my accomplishment, I think I'd feel I had a basic personal advantage over someone who was perhaps admitted only because his family had a connection. And, if I'm successful there and later in life, then me and my children will have the connection: Thus, more social mobility.
It appears very American to me. |
