(04-05-2017 03:41 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-05-2017 02:12 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(04-05-2017 01:30 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(04-05-2017 11:18 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(04-05-2017 10:34 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Who was JFK's attorney general again? When did Ted win his first elected post, and was it really a contested spot?

Who did Bill Clinton tab to head up his own health care reform initiatives?

Great use of whataboutism, but I'll still bite.

To the first: That the reason that anti-nepotism laws were created in the first place. What a weird way to try and brush off the appointment of family members to positions of power, by referencing the act that created a law forbidding that.

To the second: First Ladies have a long history of getting involved in certain policy initiatives, but yes, Hillary's official appointment to a special position did create an opening and muddy the waters for the appointment of family members to political posts. However, it was probably wrong of Bill to do what he did back then, just as I think it's wrong for Trump to do what he is doing now. Two wrongs do not make a right, especially now that you're seeing children talk about nepotism being a fact of life.

I get it. I just find it amusing when people on either side of the aisle get incensed or up in arms over something horrible the opposition is doing when their own party/side of the aisle is perfectly fine with a given questionable practice when performed by their buddies.

In a number of areas Obama maintained policies that Bush was observing or driving. The partisan sniping remained the same, but it was just different people doing the complaining.

I too find it amusing, but at some point, you can only find it amusing when it's timely. Not only do political parties change (see shift in Southern Democrats to Republicans), but also people's views often do over long periods of time.

But when you starting using long time frames, like you did - the most recent example you presented (Hillary) happened almost 25 years ago (1993) - you starting reaching the point of impossibility. I literally couldn't have incensed at something just because a "Republican" did it as I was only 4 at the time that Hillary was appointed to head the healthcare panel.

Your point does stand for plenty of other items though, and this point in a presidency (e.g. the first year after changing parties) is probably when that team mentality of politics is most ferocious.

Well, I wasn't 4 when Hillary was driving the health care reform bus.

Part of what makes life amusing is the perspectives of people in every era who don't understand the historical context of situations that people lived through in earlier generations.

We had this discussion on Robert E. Lee earlier, but while my family was not from 'the South', I grew up in Louisiana in the 1960's. Post Civil War until that time (and awhile later) Lee was widely accepted to be a gallant, heroic figure - - conflicted over loyalties to his state and the Union for whom he served admirably prior to the war. He was a university president following the war, and I think arguably has reason to be viewed more sympathetically than say, Thomas Jefferson, with regard to how he treated people of color.

Yet here we are today and the perspective of people younger than myself appears to cast him in a negative light (while maintaining the reputation of Jefferson, who was not part of the Confederacy only due to the dates of his birth and death).

People today judge with the certitude of truths decided about questions that in the past were questions subject to debate.

Can the Union be legally dissolved? The answer now is no.

That same question had a different answer for the USSR in 1990. That 'different answer' is at the core of Putin's popularity in Russia now.

I am clearly not arguing for the morality of the peculiar institution that drove the issue of secession in 1861. Just pointing out that perspective on an issue is driven by history and precedent.

Both Robert Kennedy and Hillary Clinton rode their familial appointments into terms as United States Senator from New York (not that either lived in the state prior to their decisions to run for office), and eventually into bids to become President. Bids that neither would likely have enjoyed absent their family ties.

I can't tell if you're seriously conflating the two issues we are talking about here on purpose or on accident.

Nepotism and utilizing family name to boost public awareness are two very different things. One is a direct result of the singular action taken by an individual. The other requires you to still leverage your own qualities to become elected. If name was the only thing that mattered we would have a lot more celebrities elected to higher office.