tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4905080602885676490.post5040734865125258176..comments2024-03-27T20:34:09.464+01:00Comments on zmkc: Unable to Resistzmkchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08972549292961948240noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4905080602885676490.post-63878702748637778072016-12-12T12:57:11.886+01:002016-12-12T12:57:11.886+01:00I think McCain was doomed by choosing Palin and by...I think McCain was doomed by choosing Palin and by the superficial charisma of Obama, which reminds me of that of Kennedy. Never trust charm is quite a good motto. Not that I'm saying Obama is untrustworthy - more that no-one can live up to the kind of dreams created by a star dusted image. Kennedy probably wouldn't have either. I wonder if anyone has done a speculative counter-fiction where Kennedy wasn't assassinated.zmkchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972549292961948240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4905080602885676490.post-4278824440391503682016-12-03T01:02:41.737+01:002016-12-03T01:02:41.737+01:00I would find it hard, in the US, to name anyone wi...I would find it hard, in the US, to name anyone with more than third-generation wealth. I know that there are plenty of Rockefellers and Fords about, and a Ford evening running Ford Motor Company. But they don't hold the public eye the way John Kennedy or Nelson Rockefeller did. And it is my impression that it would be hard to distinguish the manner of a Nelson or David Rockefeller from that of a John or Robert Kennedy, for all that the Rockefellers had an extra generation between them and the founder.<br /><br />Kennedy did break ground as the first Catholic, but no other has come close since. I suppose that Muskie had as good a shot as any in 1972. At the time Obama was nominated, I thought that he would be following in the steps of Al Smith; but a recession set in that doomed McCain.<br /><br />I think, by the way, that the next time someone wonders whether your seafood is sustainably sourced, you should pretend to misunderstand, and tell him "Oh, don't worry, there's plenty of sauce."<br />Kennedy definitely broke ground as the first Catholic.Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14819154529261482038noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4905080602885676490.post-60726707707295348212016-12-02T20:32:50.188+01:002016-12-02T20:32:50.188+01:00I have the idea that Gatsby was the new money &...I have the idea that Gatsby was the new money & Buchanan was supposed to represent the point of contrast. The Kennedys surely never looked like old money - it strikes me that Obama is the direct descendant of JFK. Both are hugely glamorous, possibly both are as beguiled by themselves as the electorate &, where Obama is breaking new ground as first non-white president, Kennedy broke new ground as first Catholic, didn't he? zmkchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972549292961948240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4905080602885676490.post-40470386267022516912016-12-01T11:57:44.608+01:002016-12-01T11:57:44.608+01:00"Old money" in an American context seems..."Old money" in an American context seems to mean third generation or older. By that standard, Trump is not from "old money", I agree. Was Tom Buchanan? Perhaps: he seems to have been born in the 1890s; his grandfathers would have been grown men about 1860, old enough to make money in "the gilded age."<br /><br />On the other hand, the Kennedy brothers, John, Robert, and Edward, were definitely second-generation but managed to give a more patrician impression than the president-elect. This may have owed something to the reticence of the press before the last quarter century, and something to the differences between Boston and New York. Of course you are correct in saying that no New World money is particularly old.<br /><br />Who can deny that Hillary Clinton spends little time considering the possibility that she might be wrong? Few enough of us do. In any case, I have come to tire of attaching "in my opinion" to the front of statement; the hearer or reader can take that for granted. If however I am reading from a stone tablet handed to me on Mount Sinai, then I will mention that.Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14819154529261482038noreply@blogger.com