The Miscreant Dynasty

The Age posts an excellent piece by Howell Raines, who looks at how the "Bush generations have enriched themselves while impoverishing the presidency." His basic premise is that political "dirty tricks" have been around since the beginning of our republic but the Bush dynasty has lowered it to a dark art that threatens to permanently taint our form of government.

The money quotes:

Behind George W, there are four generations of Bushes and Walkers devoted first to using political networks to pile up and protect personal fortunes and, latterly, to using absolutely any means to gain office, not because they want to do good, but because they are what passes in American for hereditary aristocrats. In sum, George Bush stands at the apex of a pyramid of privilege whose history and social significance that, given his animosity to scholarly thought, he almost certainly does not understand.

Let's hope the electorate finds an antidote to their poisonous methodology else I think it will infect the whole system. Raines still holds some optimism.

With the right leadership — the kind of flawed, but principled presidents sprinkled through its history — the United States can stop the blood-letting in Iraq, regain its standing in the world, avert the crises in health care and Social Security, and even bring disaster relief to the Gulf Coast.

We live in hope.