I’m currently reading David McCullough’s biography of John Adams – a lengthy tome that I’m working on a few pages at a time daily. What strikes me about John Adams is his hunger for knowledge, his passion for education.
John Adams and George H.W. Bush are the only two presidents whose sons have also become president. But the similarity ends there.
John Quincy Adams’ boyhood included years in Europe, where his father ensured that he was learning the importance of being a well-rounded person, speaking Latin, French, Dutch. Developing a sense of service. Learning about the world around him.
By comparison, George W. Bush spent his younger years making barely passing grades, drinking heavily, abusing cocaine, avoiding real military service by using his father’s friends to land a National Guard post which he then abandoned, and managing to fail at the oil business in the middle of oil country.
If only George had raised his son with the same intelligence and view to the future as John Adams, a man who saw himself as “obnoxious and disliked” — which no one felt but himself.
I guess it’s true – anyone can be president.
