On the homepage, we have a piece by Jim Geraghty: “Donald Trump Is Not Your Father.” Apparently, there are Trump supporters who regard the candidate as their dad. Well, I hope they’re cut in on the will.

I could not help thinking of “Ponytail Man,” as some people dubbed him: a man who stood up and asked a question at one of the 1992 presidential debates. This debate was one of those (dread, to me) townhalls. On the stage were Bush, Clinton, and Perot.


And the townhaller said, “I ask the three of you: How can we as, symbolically, the children of the future president expect the three of you to meet our needs?” At least the man threw in “symbolically.”

A lot of us wanted Bush to answer something like this: “With all due respect, I am not your daddy. I am the elected president of this country. And I’ll enforce the Constitution, kill or subdue our enemies, to the extent possible, and keep your hiney free, to live as you will.”

But that is very un-Oprah, very unmodern — and our experiment in a liberal republic is shaky.


P.S. Longtime readers know one of my favorite stories. It stars Phil Gramm, the Texas senator. He was on a program — MacNeil/Lehrer? — with a woman who represented the education establishment. The Blob, as Bill Bennett dubbed it. One exchange between them went something like this:


Gramm: My education proposals are premised on the fact that I care more about my children than you do.

Blob Lady: No, you don’t.

Gramm: Oh? What are their names?