EVERYONE, true or false; this is great??

Question

Quote of the Day
"[W]hen you read about the wife of President Nestor Kirchner, Kristina, leading in the polls to succeed her husband as President of Argentina, do you think: What a progressive country for women! Or do you remember Evita Peron (who died before she could inherit power from her husband) and Juan Peron's third wife Isabella (who gained the prize that had eluded Evita), and think: What a backward feudal political structure in which power is treated as a family possession to be bequeathed to relatives like a ring or a rug? Say... you don't suppose non-Americans feel the same way when they read about the Bushes and the Clintons do you?" -- National Review Online columnist David Frum.
OPINION JOURNAL’S POLITICAL DIARY

Answer 1

TRUE! Just because someone's husband was President does not make her qualified to be President herself.

Same goes for husbands of women who are leaders - just because Margaret Thatcher was a great Prime Minister, if something had happened to her, her husband would not have necessarily been qualified to succeed her either.

Answer 2

While I think George W. Bush was the far better choice for President in both 2000 and 2004, I would have preferred a conservative President.
The primary reason W. was elected President was all the people who felt bad about voting for Clinton INSTEAD of George (41). That is a poor reason to select a President. But, by the time the process got to the General election, then he was the best choice.
Now the Democrats are in the same boat. They want to be in Republican's faces because the Republicans impeached Slick Willy. So, they plan to select a Queen rather than a President. Hillary has done NOTHING in her entire career which would qualify her for the job (not that W. had done anything either). Hillary has done numerous things which should disqualify her from the job!

Answer 3

One trait that Americans need to improve is their imagination about routine things.

For example, I have worked in several offices, and invariably, when lunchtime came around, if people wanted hamburgers, they would talk about going to McDonalds, even though Portillos was far, far superior, and even Burger King was better.

McDonalds was always the winner because it was the first thing that popped into peoples' heads.

This analogy is the same for politics. Some candidates never even get to launch a fledgling campaign because they can't even drum up enough name recognition.

It's absurd. People would rather traipse about a shopping mall like a zombie, looking at things they neither need nor truly want, instead of spending a little of that time learning about candidates.

Having two Bushes seems like people just got accustomed to the family name. However, at least both these men had a career in politics, and had solid credentials behind them.

Answer 4

Honestly I'm not sure it's good for a country to elect "family dynasties" to hold public offices. Where do we stop? Bill, Hillary and maybe Chelsey? Do we honestly want to have the same family running things 8 more years..... and yes I know we have bush the SR and Bush JR and the rules apply the same.

Answer 5

This is a tough question.

IMHO I think that the truth may be like serial movies in the short term. You know the 1st one is usually great but the 2nd and 3rd begin to suck. Eventually we get Jar Jar Binks...

A real problem is that this isn't the movies but our political class likes re-runs because they see them as a "sure-er" thing. In the long term this will lead to either political dynasties or more likely spectacular failures like what we usually get when this crap happens thus reducing its overall level of occurrence in the world...eventually...

Answer 6

I am not too familiar with Kirchner's policies, but, in general, every man and woman should be elected for his/her personality & platform-not due to the spouse of parents. And yes, negative feelings due to this are very likely felt about the Bullshits and Clintons.

Answer 7

There's more direct examples in US history.

Nellie Taylor became the first woman governor in the US when she succeeded her dead husband in a special election to replace him. She was governor of Wyoming from 1925 to 1927.

Ma Ferguson became the second woman governor in the US when she ran for governor of Texas instead of her husband. Her husband had been impeached as governor during his second term and was ineligible to ever hold state office again. Ma Ferguson was sworn in as Texas governor just 2 weeks after Taylor.

Lurleen Wallace succeeded George Wallace as governor of Alabama when term limits prevented him from running for reelection. She was governor of Alabama from 1967 until she died of cancer in 1968.

The story of her cancer was pretty bizarre. She'd had cancer since 1961, but, as was common at the time, the doctor told her husband instead of her and he felt it best if she not be informed. Of course, she eventually found out she had cancer and had to campaign in between radiation treatments and a hysterectomy. George Wallace was running for President when Lurleen died, so he distributed his kids to various relatives instead of stopping his campaign.

Answer 8

False... not great...

Just because her husband was elected president does not mean she is qualified for the job.

Another person looking in from afar, might see it as a monarchy.