December 16, 2007: Library Science: No more Clintons, no more Bushes

These days I'm getting mighty sick of the Divine Right of Kings (or Queens) in our society. The number of families in our body politic is hideously small. These days we can add the Romneys to the short list including Clintons, Bushes, Roosevelts, Kennedys, etc. Who said monarchy is dead? Not in the US of A.

And speaking of monarchies, how about the most nefarious of all - those Sauds who have evidently colluded and bestowed their largess on many of the above? How much and how many of our presidential libraries have been built with Saudi oil money? Would be interesting to know. On this one I'm with Obama who, according to the article just linked, "has made an issue of the large yet unidentified contributors to presidential libraries, saying that he wants to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in such donations. Obama has introduced legislation that would require disclosure of all contributions to presidential libraries, including Clinton's, and Congress has actively debated such a proposal. Unlike campaign donations, money given to presidential libraries is often done with limited or no disclosure."

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Following the money in politics is usually a smart thing to do.

I too am tired of the Clintons and Bushes and so on.

However, I am also tired of Obama already. This is another multi-culti, PC stand to try to make him seem holier than thou for his own political gain.

He espouses statist solutions to virtually everything - from healthcare to now legislation for donations for presidential libraries. His policies would have material, negative consequences for America.

This deflects attention from real issues like (i) how to deal with the war that Islamism has declared against us, (ii) securing our borders and dealing with the hoard of illeagal immigrants in the US, (iii) out of control government spending (how can anyone say we have a revenue problem with a $2.9 trillion federal budget), (iv) the continued expansion of entitlements (the lastest being the mortgage bailout plan for people who can't or won't pay), (v) a public education system withering under stranglehold of the teacher's union and where mediocrity is treated as accomplishment, and (vi) where politicians openly talk about increasing taxes on people who work and are economically successful to it can redistributed to those who don't (and I am not attacking a genuine social safety net). I could go on.

I am waiting for a real leader to step and talk about what is important.

This entire Presidential campaign, the candidates, the pretend debates, and the lack of substantive discussion about the issues is getting annoying. This is no way to elect the leader of the free world. No wonder, we have such a crop of unspectacular candidates.

Posted by: Barrett at December 16, 2007 1:03 PM

I think Oligarchy is a better term for what we have. From Wikipedia,

Some authors such as Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, Thomas R. Dye, and Robert Michels, believe that any political system eventually evolves into an oligarchy. This theory is called the "iron law of oligarchy". According to this school of thought, modern democracies should be considered as elected oligarchies. In these systems, actual differences between viable political rivals are small, the oligarchic elite impose strict limits on what constitutes an 'acceptable' and 'respectable' political position, and politicians' careers depend heavily on unelected economic and media elites.

Note that this doesn't exclude dynastic families. Prominent families have ready made networks among the elite, providing access to money and influence, and many of their children are raised to consider politics as a viable profession.

Posted by: chuck at December 16, 2007 3:51 PM

I fully agree with the 2 prior posts. But even an Obama can have a good idea now and then, which I think his Pres. Library funding full disclosure is.

Posted by: TomTom at December 16, 2007 9:11 PM

This is why I sometimes toy with thoughts of a "post-electoral democracy", in which the parliament is chosen by a random draft among the citizens, in a fashion similar to a jury. The whole point of democracy is to internalize revolutionary change, and entrenched elites are the fundamental enemy of revolution. The only way to get past entrenched elites is to have a substantial part of the government operating outside the influence of those elites. You still need 'em for some stuff, so I'd probably have something like a (bigger) elected Senate and a randomly chosen House of Reps that was also bigger and served for single longish terms.

Posted by: Foobarista at December 17, 2007 1:08 AM

It has become increasingly clear in the last few days that the real candidate is Bill Clinton. Hillary is the straw man (or straw woman) stand in for Bill Clinton. He wants to be president again.

Notice that when Hillary loses some ground and begins to look like a loser, Bill steps in and quickly dominates the campaign.

A vote for Hill, - - - Gets Bill.

Personally, I have had enough of both.

Posted by: Ray at December 17, 2007 1:48 PM

...Obama who, according to the article just linked, "has made an issue of the large yet unidentified contributors to presidential libraries, saying that he wants to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in such donations..."

To paraphrase Thomas Reed, "The gentleman need not be disturbed. He shall never be president."

Posted by: srlucado at December 17, 2007 3:19 PM

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