A president, a former vice-president, and a lawyer walk into a DNA factory.
It sounds like the first line of a bad joke.
But it is just part of my life -- and that part of life where we have absolutely no control: our relatives.
Several years ago, one of my cousins started an almost obsessive interest in our family tree. He has traveled throughout the world uncovering some of the more savory bits of our family. But, like most families, most of the information is more mundane than the shipping news.
I must confess, though, I was morbidly fascinated to discover I am descended from the first person to be hanged in Massachusetts Bay Colony for murder. That another relative was tried -- and convicted -- as a witch. That another relative shot his best friend in a dispute over a woman.
But we were all surprised during the Democrat primaries when an enterprising reporter (the type of reporter who apparently did not have enough to do) uncovered the interesting little tidbit that Dick Cheney and Barack Obama were eighth cousins. Almost like the Patty Duke Show -- with a rather odd twist.
My mother immediately called me because her family shares the same connecting relative. Of course, a headline reading: "Oregon dog-owner related to political candidate" does not quite have the same caché as sworn political opponents sharing the same DNA.
I thought about that last night as I was leafing through the latest edition of National Review. Two book reviews caught my eye.
The first was a review of Ira Stoll's biography of Sam Adams -- the founding father, not the Portland mayor who chooses to bed foundlings.
The patriot Adams has long been one of my political idols. A schemer. But one of the first colonists who saw that our marriage to parliament was based on "irreconcilable differences" -- and there was nothing for it, but a divorce. Perhaps one of the more zealous proponents of liberty in the 1760s and 1770s. And another cousin.
The second review was written by one of my favorite writers: Florence King. (A preference I am pleased to share with Jennifer Rose.) She reviewed Alison Weir's Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster.
Katherine was one of those interesting characters from medieval history. We know next to nothing about her -- other than she was the centerpiece of a steamy novel in the 1950s.
The real Katherine started as the daughter of a Flemish merchant. Became the governess for the children of one of the English king's younger sons. Became the mistress of the English king's younger son. And ended up the mother of children who pumped out their own DNA that has resided in every British monarch since Edward IV -- including the Hanoverian lot populating the current throne.
The fact that Katherine was the fountainhead of so many monarchs did not keep her descendants from warring against their cousins and doing some rather unspeakable things. In that era, power was an end in itself, and those that had the power could -- and did -- put an end to anyone who endangered that hold.
Sam Adams had a better idea. People, living in liberty and virtue, could govern themselves peacefully.
Americans can take a good deal of pride that the Adams DNA proved stronger than the Swynford model -- at least, socially. Americans just witnessed the power of the Adams model in a rare event in this world: power passed peacefully from one party to another.
As I watch what is happening in Mexico today, I pray that the Mexican parties will show the same maturity when power passes between them.
It sounds like the first line of a bad joke.
But it is just part of my life -- and that part of life where we have absolutely no control: our relatives.
Several years ago, one of my cousins started an almost obsessive interest in our family tree. He has traveled throughout the world uncovering some of the more savory bits of our family. But, like most families, most of the information is more mundane than the shipping news.
I must confess, though, I was morbidly fascinated to discover I am descended from the first person to be hanged in Massachusetts Bay Colony for murder. That another relative was tried -- and convicted -- as a witch. That another relative shot his best friend in a dispute over a woman.
But we were all surprised during the Democrat primaries when an enterprising reporter (the type of reporter who apparently did not have enough to do) uncovered the interesting little tidbit that Dick Cheney and Barack Obama were eighth cousins. Almost like the Patty Duke Show -- with a rather odd twist.
My mother immediately called me because her family shares the same connecting relative. Of course, a headline reading: "Oregon dog-owner related to political candidate" does not quite have the same caché as sworn political opponents sharing the same DNA.
I thought about that last night as I was leafing through the latest edition of National Review. Two book reviews caught my eye.
The first was a review of Ira Stoll's biography of Sam Adams -- the founding father, not the Portland mayor who chooses to bed foundlings.
The patriot Adams has long been one of my political idols. A schemer. But one of the first colonists who saw that our marriage to parliament was based on "irreconcilable differences" -- and there was nothing for it, but a divorce. Perhaps one of the more zealous proponents of liberty in the 1760s and 1770s. And another cousin.
The second review was written by one of my favorite writers: Florence King. (A preference I am pleased to share with Jennifer Rose.) She reviewed Alison Weir's Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster.
Katherine was one of those interesting characters from medieval history. We know next to nothing about her -- other than she was the centerpiece of a steamy novel in the 1950s.
The real Katherine started as the daughter of a Flemish merchant. Became the governess for the children of one of the English king's younger sons. Became the mistress of the English king's younger son. And ended up the mother of children who pumped out their own DNA that has resided in every British monarch since Edward IV -- including the Hanoverian lot populating the current throne.
The fact that Katherine was the fountainhead of so many monarchs did not keep her descendants from warring against their cousins and doing some rather unspeakable things. In that era, power was an end in itself, and those that had the power could -- and did -- put an end to anyone who endangered that hold.
Sam Adams had a better idea. People, living in liberty and virtue, could govern themselves peacefully.
Americans can take a good deal of pride that the Adams DNA proved stronger than the Swynford model -- at least, socially. Americans just witnessed the power of the Adams model in a rare event in this world: power passed peacefully from one party to another.
As I watch what is happening in Mexico today, I pray that the Mexican parties will show the same maturity when power passes between them.
