Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Sen. Barack Obama’s background looms important for some people, including Obama himself. Since the advent of modern psychology, we’ve been in the habit of deducing the child from the parents. But the world is more serpentine than all that. Sometimes the child is not an apple fallen from the parental tree. Because of the intervention of the human will – think of former President Bill Clinton in the act of re-invention – likes sometimes produce opposites. In addition to learning from one’s own mistakes, one may also learn valuable lessons from the mistakes of one’s parents. Former president Richard Nixon’s parents, both Quaker quietists, were not, one supposes, ardent accolades of Fredrick Nietzsche. “I can’t find my copy,” Nixon said to Monica Crowley when his Nietzsche appeared to be lost in 1992. “I must have lent it out to someone. I can’t believe I’m missing my Nietzsche! I always try to look at this stuff during a presidential campaign to remind me of why I went through the damned ...