Dubya: A Columbus of the Very Near-at-Hand
Before theNational Reviewgoes to war with the other Families of intellectual conservatism ("That's alright, this thing's gotta happen every five years or so -- ten years -- helps to get rid of the bad blood"), in swoops Adam Bellow to argue that the real problem is what Harriet Miers doesn't know, not necessarily whom she does. Bellow is of course the author of the bookIn Praise of Nepotism: A History of Family Enterprise from King David to George W. Bush, and must be thanking every one of his outstretched bootstraps that the current tussle over the president's Supreme Court pick has him working again. (Outstretched definitions, too: he's the one conflating cronyism with nepotism). But hang on a minute:
Dynastic families are not like yours and mine (unless your name is Bush or Kennedy). They are self-conscious, multigenerational enterprises displaying strong collective discipline and an innate, untutored grasp of certain perennial modes and orders that advance the family