WA Post stroke piece: The Bushes, a "top tier U.S. political family"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

The Roosevelts, Kennedys, and Now the Bushes

By John F. Harris, Washington Post Staff Writer

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&ncid=1802&e=3&u=/washpost/a14032_2005jan16

Amid the celebration and crowds of Inauguration Day came a surprisingly intimate moment between father and son. As John F. Kennedy's parade passed the reviewing stand where Joseph P. Kennedy was watching, the new president looked up and tipped his hat -- a gesture of affection and gratitude to the patriarch who had dreamed for years of putting a son in the White House.

Forty-four years later, as President Bush (news - web sites) prepares to launch his second term, it might be the father who should tip his hat to the son.

One of the 43rd president's achievements in winning reelection, according to Bush family friends and historians, is to ease the sting of the 41st president's failure to do so a dozen years earlier. The president's victory also establishes firmly a fact that earlier was open to dispute: The Bushes now belong in the top tier of political families in U.S. history.

There may not be a distinctive "Bush style" that other politicians try to mimic, as they did with JFK's appearance and wit. The family has yet to capture the romantic fancy of fiction writers and Hollywood producers. The incumbent is launching a second term, according to polls, with nearly as many Americans scornful of his presidency as supportive of it. No matter. By any objective measure, political scholars say, Bush is a name that belongs next to Adams, Kennedy and Roosevelt as a force whose influence spans decades.

[wolfgirl]

1. gag

:puke: