There has been so much comment about how his parents union would have been illegal in many States in 1961. Possibly things may have been more relaxed in Hawaii, though it cannot have been easy
But I wonder if Obama would even be qualified to be President if he had been born just 2 years earlier, before Hawaii became the 50th State?
I read that Obama now has no living American relatives (from his own or an older generation), apart from his sister. And he has even had to break with the pastor who provided much support in his life in Chicago
Since Kennedy & Bush, both from large dynasties, were for various reasons on my mind, I was wondering if a small family was unusual for an American President. But not at all, as soon as you think of Clinton, Carter, Reagan …
Such an unimaginably heavy burden now rests on Obama’s shoulders, all that weight of inchoate hope. I suppose it is a moot point whether a large clan, steeped in politics, is a support or a burden in such a place
Advisers will be crucial. A good time, I think, to reread JK Galbraith’s Ambassador’s Journal which contains much about how Kennedy got drawn in to war with Vietnam.
And how odd that another of Galbraith’s books should seem so a propos all over again
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