There are many myths about
American history that we are told as children and that far too many of us cling
to when we should well know better. Two are among the most easily disproven:
“Anyone can grow up to become President” and “America does not have ruling
families the way Europe does.”
The first is very clear with
even the most basic understanding of the lives of most of the men who have run
for President. The second is obvious to anyone who even takes a cursory look at
any of the men or women who have served in political office. I feel fairly
confident that a mere glance at the elected officials who have represented any
state in the Union in the past fifty years will have their ties to some
previous elected official a generation or two generations previous.
Now for those who want to
talk how this is fundamentally un-American, I would simply argue our countries
obsession with celebrity. How many people have we celebrated in any field- film, music, fashion, television – whose sole
accomplishment was basically having a famous parent? We might condemn, we will
talk of them as being of privilege and entitlement, but it is merely a
precursor for, well, our entire history across the globe. We might not like but
it is a fact of life that only fairly recently we’ve become to condemn. Until
say the last twenty years or so (and that’s being generous) America has had
little problem with the idea of families of privilege being famous for their
last name alone.
Such has been the case in
America since the founding of the Republic. Two of our first six presidents
were from the Adamses, a family that had been among the first American
revolutionaries. Nor did it end with John Quincy: his son Charles Francis ran
as Vice President on the Free Soil Party in the 1848 Presidential Election, and
was a figure in Republican Politics for decades after, considered at one point
a front-runner for the 1872 Liberal Republican nomination for President
(another story I may get too someday.)
A political dynasty may not
be the ideal subject when it comes to discussing American politics and the
Presidents but, as with all great politicians, it is dependent on what they
manage to accomplish in their lives. For all of the backlash both Theodore and
Franklin Roosevelt have received in certain circles in recent years, the fact
is they were two of the greatest President history, both of whom had to
overcome great physical and personal travails, both of whom were considered
traitors to the aristocratic classes they were born into because of their
fealty to the common man, and both of whom made huge strides for America at a
vital time despite being loathed by many in both political parties. FDR may
have gotten the country through two of its greatest crises compared to TR who
(much to his chagrin) served in a time of peace, but both were significant
political figures.
And in contrast to the
Kennedys, blood did not presage party loyalty. Eleanor incurred the wrath of
her cousins when she waged a dirty campaign against Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. in
his campaign for Governor of New York so that Al Smith could win reelection.
And when FDR was running for President in 1932, many who were on Theodore’s
side of the family actively campaigned for Hoover. Which was fair because in
1912, when Theodore had run as a Bull Moose, Franklin had stayed loyal to
Wilson and his own daughter campaigned for Taft.
This is the fundamental
problem when we discuss the Kennedys. So much of their luster is based on
mythology and tragedy more than actual accomplishment. They don’t even deserve
to be mentioned in the same breath as the Roosevelts, and in honesty, the Taft’s
and the Rockefellers managed to achieve far more in their time in public office
than the Kennedys ever did. If I were to be truly honest, the closest
comparison the Kennedys have is truly the Bush family. And there’s actually an
argument that the Bushes are superior in terms of actual accomplishment. Before
you yell me at for blasphemy, let’s compare both of the families records.
Both the Kennedys and the
Bushes came from prominent New England families. Both of the Kennedy and the
Bush legacies would not have been possible without the work of the father.
Though here, there’s a clear argument that Prescott Bush has a better track
record than Joseph Kennedy.
Kennedy Sr, as has been well
documented, was connected to organized crime, made much of his family fortune
in bootlegging, and while he was a highly involved in Democratic politics, the
highest position he ever achieved was Ambassador to England, at which time he
argued to FDR against America’s involvement in World War II. Prescott Bush,
while not entirely known for his character, did serve with distinction in World
War I and served two terms representing Connecticut in the U.S. Senate from
1952 to 1962. Prescott was also very liberal, the first national treasurer for
Planned Parenthood, and an early supporter of the United Negro College Fund.
And for the record, he was in the Senate the same time as Kennedy but unlike
JFK had no problem voting to censure Joe McCarthy.
Now to the qualifications of
candidate Jack Kennedy in 1960 and candidate George H.W. Bush in 1980. When it
came to qualifications, their records are not comparable. Kennedy had been in
the House for six years and the Senate for eight. Bush Senior had been in
Congress for two terms, served as head of the RNC from 1973 on, had been
Ambassador to China and head of the CIA.
Neither one was the most
qualified man in the field of potential candidates when they ran, to be sure,
but JFK ranked infinitely lower in his field than Bush Senior did in his. The
major opposition was Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson, Adlai Stevenson (who I
will probably discuss in a future article) and Missouri Senator Stuart
Symington. Symington, in addition to being a Senator, had been the first
Secretary of the Air Force. There’s an argument Kennedy was the least qualified
of the group: that was the opinion of many Democratic leaders prior to 1960.
Bush senior was not at the
top of his field, either, but it’s worth remembering that his field of
candidates were much larger – and more qualified. In addition to Ronald Reagan,
his opponents were John Connally, former Governor of Texas, Treasury Secretary
under Nixon (and Nixon’s personal choice to succeed him before the Watergate
Scandal) Howard Baker, then Senate Minority Leader, known for his role on the
Watergate committee, Bob Dole, who at that point had been the head of the RNC
during the 1972 campaign and Ford’s running mate in 1976, John Anderson,
ten-time Congressman of Illinois, Phil Crane, another Illinois Congressman
highly ranked among conservatives and Gerald Ford, who spent most of the 1979
and 1980 campaign considering whether he should jump in. Theodore White, when
he ranked these eight candidates, divided them into a ‘big four’ and a ‘little
four’. Bush was in the big four, along with Reagan, Connally and Baker – and
its worth noting that Bush put up the hardest fight against Reagan all the way
through.
And despite his immense
disagreement with Reagan on virtually everything (which the conservative wing
never trusted him for) Bush still accepted the vice-presidential nomination
that summer, even though there’s a very real chance Reagan himself didn’t want
him on the ticket. JFK famously came to prominence when he nominated Adlai
Stevenson for President at the 1956 Democratic Convention and then tried to
become Stevenson’s running mate. Kennedy and his family thought Stevenson was a
loser and really didn’t want to run with him that fall, not even going so far
as to campaign for him. It was at the end of the day all but about getting set for
1960. Bush was at the end of the day in favor of party loyalty. There’s very
little to suggest that the Kennedys were loyal to any cause other than each
other, certainly during JFK’s presidential run and the later runs of both of
his brothers.
As to individual
accomplishment as President (leaving George W. out of it for the moment) George
Senior did get a lot done. The Berlin Wall and the Cold War ended on his watch,
something that at the end of the day Reagan somehow gets more credit for. For
all the ugliness of the Second Gulf War, Bush Senior did end the first quickly
and efficiently. And while his legislative achievements are minimal, many of
them were completed with an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress. (Bush is one of
three Presidents in the 20th Century to never have his party in
control of Congress during his entire term.) After discussion with a fellow
historian (I’ll go into more details about who he was and why I trust him in a
future article) I have revised my opinion on JFK’s accomplishments while in
office and conclude that his legacy was more substantial than I first thought.
But I still believe that so much of JFK’s legacy (and arguably the Kennedys as
a whole) is based solely on potential. Every other President in history is
graded on what he accomplished. JFK is the only president who gets graded more
on what he didn’t do – and yet somehow is regarded higher in most
historians estimation as a result.
There are other comparisons
where the Kennedys are similar and actually worse than the Bushes. The Bushes
are known for being ugly campaigners willing to do anything to win. The
Kennedys were known for being just as ugly and underhanded in their campaigns
(and if we’re being honest, the Bushes never have gone so far to buy voters to
come out, something we’re pretty sure the Kennedys did.) The Bushes were
loyalty to their family but also to their party. The Kennedys were loyal to
family, period. Bush senior had to survive a primary challenge in 1992, but
however twisted Pat Buchanan’s point of view, at least he had something passing
for a reason. The whole purpose behind Ted Kennedy’s challenge to Jimmy Carter
was that he didn’t not seem to like Jimmy Carter – he famously couldn’t even
come up with a reason why he wanted to be President on national television. And
for all the arguments of the quagmire we got into because of W and Iraq, let’s
not try to pretend the Kennedys hands are entirely clean when it comes to their
involvement in Vietnam. Oliver Stone and his ilk can argue as much as they want
about Kennedy being killed because he was going to get us out, but the Pentagon
Papers have made it very clear that the Kennedys were very aware of some of the
problems in Vietnam and while they might not have actively made it worse, they
didn’t make it better. (I’ll have more to say about this in future entries.)
Oh, and remember how many
people that George W. and Jeb only got their jobs because of their father? How
do you think Bobby and Ted got their first jobs in government? Bobby was
appointed Attorney General by his brother and the two of them essentially spent
the next three years running the country and shutting other advisors out. That
didn’t seem to bother people in subsequent years; hell, most of them thought it
made him qualified. And Ted? The seat he held for seven terms was his brothers.
And just to make sure no one else could take it, they had the governor appoint
Stephen Smith, a Kennedy ally to hold the seat until Ted was old enough to run
for it.
There are very few true
separations between the Kennedy family and the Bush family, and far more where
the Bushes come out ahead. So why do we repudiate one and celebrate the other?
Why did so many people condemn George W.’s run for Presidency as being borne
out of privilege and legacy and yet every time Bobby or Ted even hinted at
running for President was it not only considered right, but a sacred duty? (I
believe the term ‘Restoration’ was used for each of them.) Is it because one
was a Democratic family and one was Republican? (Although based on the policies
of Prescott and George Senior in particular, you could make your argument there
were elements of both men that were far more liberal than Jack and Bobby in
their runs for public office.) Is it because one family was more photogenic and
had a way with rhetoric and the others were not and mangled the syntax? I grant
you the utter horror show that followed of W’s Presidency hasn’t helped the
legacy of his family one bit, but that’s another point. Both W and JFK were
involved in razor thin elections where there was a lot of controversy involving
the victor. W’s presidency was condemned as illegitimate from the beginning and
only went downhill from there. After the ugliness in November, Democrats never
had anything bad to say about JFK. There’s as much hypocrisy here as in
everything else.
Why do so many people celebrate
the Kennedys and in the same breath condemn the Bushes despite how close they
are in so many ways? Again, it has little to do with their accomplishments and
more to do with tragedy. And while none can deny the tragedy of the Kennedy
family (which started decades before Jack became President) it’s not a
substitute for actual accomplishment. In the weeks to come, I will begin to
unfold the complicated legacy of the Kennedy campaigns and how bias has led so
many to believe the greatness in the Kennedy name has little to do with
reality.
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