...about the dynastic implications of a Rodham administration, but we have had these before: John and John Quincy (father and son), William Henry and Benjamin (grandfather and grandson), Theodore and Franklin (cousins) and of course George H. W. and Junior (father and Satan's spawn). It's when the same clan comes round for a third bite of the apple that we emerge from beneath the umbrella of those precedents, and this is more troubling. Of course, as we worry about this sort of thing in the White House, a hereditary oligarchy has become both quite entrenched in our own society and ferociously determined to hoard all the fruits of privilege within its own class.

cordially,

I referred to a "hereditary oligarchy." Chelsea Clinton, born to a sitting governor and reaching legal adulthood in the household of a sitting US president, may possibly be counted a member of that class, and has certainly not been shy about leveraging, or having leveraged on her behalf, the perks of her connections: many people of her age with comparable abilities have inexplicably found fewer doors flung open before them on their lives' courses. Mrs. Clinton's antecedents are what we used to call "solidly middle class," and unlike her daughter she attended public schools rather than Sidwell Friends. President Clinton, of course, was of a working class background, and whatever you may think of his conduct in office, he made his way to national prominence on the strength of ambition and ability (the same may be said, to be sure, of R.M. Nixon).

Meritocracy is actually a pretty intelligent way for an oligarchy to perpetuate the system by which its privileges are maintained. Men (until recently men exclusively) of exceptional talent and energy will inevitably arise in the lower orders, and while it may be possible to smother the aspirations of many such by withholding the oxygen of opportunity, a few will always survive this both fortified by the ordeal (Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker) and resentful of the obstacles they have been obliged to clear. This approach potentially breeds capable and determined revolutionaries. Better to spot these embryonic troublemakers early on and to harness those energies to the oligarchy’s own ends, an approach that has obviously served the saner oligarchs fairly well in the Clintons' case. Certainly both have been bridled,* and quite likely the Hillary Rodham who delivered the commencement address at Wellesley College would have little use for many of the ideological compromises and betrayals undertaken by the mature office-seeker.

The Washington DC culture has long had its own class structure and biases. Kennedys, Bushes, Lodges, Roosevelts all had the cachet of inherited wealth, although as I understand it, the Kennedy money had a bit too much of the “new car smell” on it to suit some of the capital establishment. Nixon was aware of this condescension (which had not much affected Eisenhower, whose own pedigree had little of privilege about it, but Ike won the office a few years after overseeing Operation Fucking Overlord, and presumably got a pass), and smarted under it. Carter was dismissed as a hick. The Clintons, let us remember, were regarded by the social arbiters of the Village as intolerable arrivistes, trailer trash. How they despised the couple!: “[Clinton] came in here and he trashed the place, and it's not his place." —David Broder, whose grave should be desecrated every year on the anniversary of Bill C's acquittal in the Senate (Follow up that link, by the way. Whatever you feel about Bill and the Missus—love, hatred, admiration, contempt, indifference—it’s difficult to read this haughty, self-satisfied, cloyingly incestuous tripe without wishing the entire class represented by Sally Quinn’s column to be variously guillotined, strung from light standards, or lined up in front of the Vietnam Memorial and machine-gunned).

Anyway, oligarch, maybe. Hereditary oligarch, nuh-uh.

cordially,

*I'm put in mind of my first visit to Washington DC, thirty-three years ago this week. A friend of a friend kindly offered her exceedingly gracious hospitality, although all I'd asked for was to be pointed in the direction of the major equestrian statues. "It's my first time at the center of power," I told her. "Center of power?" she snorted. "This is where they stable the horses. The owners are all in New York."