thread: 2008-11-07 : Hope & Courage
On 2008-11-12, Ben Lehman wrote:
I dunno. Let's look at a couple of parallel cases, with Ireland and China.
Let's say that we have an Irish-American whose father was in the IRA, who was born in the US with dual citizenship, who lived in Ireland and served in the Irish military, but then moved to the US, worked in a previous white house, was elected to three terms in congress and was skilled enough to get a leadership position. He's an old political ally and connection of the new president, since they draw on the same South-Boston Irish Catholic political heritage. Is this person ineligible for Chief of Staff? Really?
How about let's go back a generation. A Chinese American whose father was deeply involved in the May 4th movement and the KMT during the formative nation-building years, but moved to the US to have kids. This person volunteered to fight in WW2 as one of the Flying Tigers (American pilots under Chinese command), and after the war moved to the US, worked in a previous white house, was elected to three terms in congress and skilled enough to get a leadership position. Is this person really ineligible for Chief of Staff? Really?
Maybe there is something there, and I'm not seeing it, because of the outrageousness of your "sins of the father are visited upon the son" argument.
yrs—
—Ben
