Family Value

When Alabama Governot George Wallace could not pass a law that would allow him to succeed himself in the 1960s, his wife Lurleen ran and won.

In a Washington speech, I made a lame joke about Wallace putting the state in his wife’s name, and I kept getting hate mail from Alabama for a decade.

Now the issue is back, with sharp questioning about whether Hillary Clinton would qualify if her husband hadn’t been President.

Even George W. Bush (of all people) in his State of the Union tribute to Nancy Pelosi may have been putting in a nepotism needle by mentioning her father, the Congressman.

From the start, with the Adamses, American politics has been a family business based on primogeniture--Kennedys, Bushes, Gores, Byrds, Cuomos, Romneys, etc.—but the idea of a woman benefiting from such connections seems to outrage some people.

Get over it. Wouldn't any sane voter rather see Laura Bush in the Oval Office instead of her husband?