White House Dynasty

29 May 2007 |permalink | email article

How much presidential power should be concentrated in just two American families?

The question, recently explored by columnist Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times, may be relevant about the 2008 election.

Before Kristof got to the “but” part of his column he wrote that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would make a terrific president.

“If Mrs. Clinton were elected president and served two terms, then for seven consecutive presidential terms the White House would have been in the hands of just two families.”

Kristof correctly opined it would not be the kind of equal-opportunity democracy that Andrew Jackson’s election in 1829 opened up in American politics.

Two explosive new biographies on Clinton offer critical and often fresh portraits of the leading Democratic candidate, which detail both marital strife and her driving political ambition.

The Washington Post noted that both books, written by longtime journalists, include a number of assertions and anecdotes that could confront Clinton’s campaign with unwelcome questions, a challenge her chief advisers are already trying to minimize.

“A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton,” by Carl Bernstein, who with the Post’s Bob Woodward broke open the Watergate scandal, has been in the works for eight years. Out June 5, it includes damning observations from persons once close to the senator and her often-stormy relationship with Bill Clinton.

“Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton,” by longtime New York Times investigative reporters Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr., is on sale June 8, after June 3 excerpts in the New York Times Magazine.

According to Gerth and Van Natta, even before the Clintons were married they formulated a “secret pact of ambition” aimed at reinventing the Democratic Party and getting to the White House.

The book details Clinton’s Senate vote in support of the Iraq war and a need “to prove that she was tough enough” as a woman.

The authors assert that as part of her presidential ambitions, the Clintons plotted to steal some of the thunder of former vice president Al Gore on climate change, creating tension between the two former partners.

Both books should rekindle a debate on White House dynasty. That a Bush 41-Bush 43 series of presidencies could extend to a possible Clinton 42-Clinton 44 16-year reign suggests to me a concentration of power unhealthy for the body politic.

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