Return to the essay table of contents
1. THE PRESIDENCY - ONE EXTENDED FAMILY (Sept. 2002)
Different people were happy Senator Joseph Lieberman ran for Vice President in 2000 for different reasons and I have an interesting one. What I'm saying, I swear it, is based on good research. Up until now the Presidency has been held essentially by one extended family, literally, and Joseph Lieberman ain't part of it and I was delighted. But let me tell you about the family, or, if I may in Yiddish, this mishpucha. We all know about George Dubya, son of President George. George Bush was the 10th cousin, once removed, of Richard Nixon. Nixon was the 6th cousin of Jimmy Carter, both descendents of a New Jersey Quaker named Richard Morris. On Dubya's side Barbara Bush is a distant relative of Presidents Franklin Pierce, Rutherford B. Hayes and William Howard Taft. A single family, getting it on and electing the results. Want more? George, and Barbara, distant cousins, are the descendents of Francis Cooke and Hester De La Noye, who came on the Mayflower in 1620. Hester's sister Marie De La Noye stayed in the Netherlands, had a child. Eventually the name De La Noye changed..to Delano. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, descendent 7 times removed. Roosevelt's 5th cousin..President Theodore Roosevelt. 9 Presidents in the family so far and I'm not even trying. Want more? George Bush is a distant relative of Princess Di, who was related to 7 Presidents. Scratch old anglo Gore I bet you find the same. We're a multiethnic society at the bottom so when does it start happening at the top? I want the dream ticket--- George Takei, Jennifer Lopez, a Vulcan, anything. I am Ira Rosenstein and right now I don't have a chance.
Return to the essay table of contents