It turns out President Barack Obama has something in common with his predecessor George W. Bush. No, it’s not two daughters, a celebrity dog, and virulent animosity from the opposition party. It turns out that Obama and Bush are cousins—umpteenth removed, but cousins nonetheless. And their extended family includes everyone from Bill Clinton to the Roosevelts to Lincoln to Jefferson to Washington, etc. In fact, they are related to all the other presidents except for one, Martin Van Buren (though if you trust Gore Vidal’s novel Burr …, he may be related too—the novel claims that he was Burr’s illegitimate son).
The discovery was made by BridgeAnne d’Avignon, 12, a student at Monte Vista Christian School in Watsonville. She discovered this as part of her own efforts to trace her family tree.
So who is the common ancestor of all of them? None other than notorious King John of England, a man who said (in Shakespeare’s play):
“Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back,
When gold and silver becks me to come on!”
(He said Beck, not me!)
There’s a certain irony in this for the Tea Partiers and anyone else who accuses Obama of “redistributing wealth.” In King John’s reign it was the legendary Robin Hood who “stole from the rich to give to the poor,” making himself John’s mortal enemy. The barons of the day didn’t like King John either, and in 1215, they forced him to sign the Magna Carta, limiting the power of the king. The Magna Carta was one of the most significant documents leading to the development of constitutional law. As Churchill once said of him: “When the long tally is added, it will be seen that the British nation and the English-speaking world [that’s us] owe far more to the vices of John than to the labours of virtuous sovereigns.”
It seems that when it comes to virtues, his descendants—43 out of 44 presidents of the U.S.—did a better job than him.
Read More at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
