Jenna Bush Hager, affirmative action hire
Jenna Bush Hager, a schoolteacher in Baltimore and yes, daughter of former President Bush, picked up a new parttime gig yesterday when it was announced that she would file occasional stories for NBC’s “Today” show out of its Washington studio.
Jenna Bush Hager
I don’t mean to pick on Jenna; she’s done nothing wrong. She has a famous name and a semi-famous face, and in a celebrity culture like our own, that makes her qualified enough. She’ll draw eyeballs, which makes her no less deserving and probably more so than many. But her new high-profile job, and the quick ascent of others similarly situated, do serve as reminders of just how institutionalized such advantages really are.
As Glenn Greenwald of Salon put it:
They should convene a panel for the next “Meet the Press” with Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, and they should have Chris Wallace moderate it. They can all bash affirmative action and talk about how vitally important it is that the U.S. remain a Great Meritocracy because it’s really unfair for anything other than merit to determine position and employment. They can interview Lisa Murkowski, Evan Bayh, Jeb Bush, Bob Casey, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Dan Lipinksi, and Harold Ford, Jr. about personal responsibility and the virtues of self-sufficiency. Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz can provide moving commentary on how America is so special because all that matters is merit, not who you know or where you come from. There’s a virtually endless list of politically well-placed guests equally qualified to talk on such matters.
It’s not just politics and media, of course. The pattern holds in every field of human endeavor, and always has and always will. And as Greenwald goes on to note:
“… all of the above-listed people are examples of America’s Great Meritocracy, having achieved what they have solely on the basis of their talent, skill and hard work — The American Way. By contrast, Sonia Sotomayor — who grew up in a Puerto Rican family in Bronx housing projects; whose father had a third-grade education, did not speak English and died when she was 9; whose mother worked as a telephone operator and a nurse; and who then became valedictorian of her high school, summa cum laude at Princeton, a graduate of Yale Law School, and ultimately a Supreme Court Justice — is someone who had a whole litany of unfair advantages handed to her and is the poster child for un-American, merit-less advancement.”
The form of affirmative action that landed Jenna Bush on the “Today” show is accepted and understood and so ingrained in how we think that it is utterly noncontroversial, except by comparison with the Sotomayor approach. And isn’t it interesting how nobody is wringing their hands, worried that poor Jenna is going to have to deal with the psychological damage of knowing that she didn’t get the “Today” gig all on her own.
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241 comments Add your comment
Scooter
September 1st, 2009
7:40 am
Did I get first again?
Scooter
September 1st, 2009
7:40 am
Finn McCool
September 1st, 2009
7:44 am
ohoh, Jenna can show us how to beer bong properly!
And then next week she can show us how to live the coke life even while secret service men are like so totally around all the time!
Carter is a Fool
September 1st, 2009
7:46 am
More drivel from this rag. I know that we should expect no better. Once again, the majority of this is not an original piece but a copy and paste job with a few comments by Bookman.
Normal
September 1st, 2009
7:46 am
See, Scooter, meritocracy at its best…
Normal
September 1st, 2009
7:47 am
I sure am glad she looks more like her Mom, though. Otherwise she’d have a face made for radio…
jt
September 1st, 2009
7:47 am
Name recognition can get you the job, but you still need to produce to keep it. Unless, of course, you report for the NYT!
jt
September 1st, 2009
7:49 am
Or the federal goverment.
Finn McCool
September 1st, 2009
7:49 am
“A huge family night for the Bush family. This morning the Bush twins woke up in Lincoln’s lap.” –David Letterman
“President Bush’s daughter Jenna has a new boyfriend and everybody in Washington is asking who’s the lucky designated driver?” –Craig Ferguson
Scooter
September 1st, 2009
7:49 am
I guess it is who you know not what you know. ?????
Scooter
September 1st, 2009
7:54 am
Normal, I can’t even pronounce meritocracy!
Turd Ferguson
September 1st, 2009
7:57 am
Congrats Jenna!!
Night Train
September 1st, 2009
7:58 am
This ’story’ rates right up there with ‘my dog pooped on the carpet, again’.
Mrs. Godzilla
September 1st, 2009
7:59 am
Cut the kid some slack. She went through the sneakin’ and drinkin’ period and appears to have grown up. But yes, they bought the last name.
TnGelding
September 1st, 2009
7:59 am
Scooter
September 1st, 2009
7:40 am
Did you see the song I dedicated to you Friday night?
Well, in all honesty, I wish Jenna and her ilk would leave the paying jobs to someone that needs them. Why can’t she do charity work like Elizabeth Dole did before she was a senator? And why do spouses of our congresspeople have to hold a government position like DASCHLE’S WIFE did?
Wonder how many members of Congress are drawing Social Security benefits along with their nearly $200k “salary” besides John McCain and President of the Senate Joe Biden. But heaven forbid if we feed the hungry or take care of the sick.
Normal
September 1st, 2009
8:01 am
SCOOTER, you don’t need to know how to pronounce it…just do your best and, you too, can grow up to become a President…
TnGelding
September 1st, 2009
8:03 am
Turd Ferguson
September 1st, 2009
7:57 am
Maybe she can reveal the real reason for Iraq?
Futures are down. Has the worm turned?
Peadawg
September 1st, 2009
8:07 am
“just do your best and, you too, can grow up to become a President”
If Obama can somehow do it, anyone can do it!
Normal
September 1st, 2009
8:08 am
PEADAWG, Bless your heart…
Peadawg
September 1st, 2009
8:09 am
Scooter
September 1st, 2009
8:09 am
TnGelding
September 1st, 2009
7:59 am
Scooter
September 1st, 2009
7:40 am
Did you see the song I dedicated to you Friday night?
TnG, no. I had to leave unexpectedly! Will you post it again so I will not have to go back and find it?
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
September 1st, 2009
8:11 am
Well, it’s always good to see somebody make it to the big time thru alot of hard work. Jenna had alot of disadvantages, being overshadowed by her Dad and all, and she had to run like the dickens to keep the press from butting in on her private life. Most of us when we were kids could sneak a beer or a little moonshine without somebody blowing the whistle on us, but let Jenna have just a few margaritas as a teenager and the press was all over her.
Anyhow, this new job just shows you can work your way to the top if you try hard enough. She didn’t have this Affirmative Action and stuff like that to give her a leg up. And she probly turned down any help from that millionaire boy she marryed.
So I say let the libruls on this blog learn a good lesson from what Jenna done. In spite of money and fame and rich and famous parents and all that stuff, she worked her way to the top. Now if these libruls will just get over their class warfare and get into a rich and famous family, they can make it too. Instead of trying to tear down people that made their way thru hard work.
Have a good day everybody.
Taxpayer
September 1st, 2009
8:12 am
She teaches! Has she left any children behind.
Peadawg
September 1st, 2009
8:14 am
Normal, now that’s what I call REAL hope! LOL!!!
Jan Spiro
September 1st, 2009
8:14 am
let’s add the cox sisters and jim kennedy.
Taxpayer
September 1st, 2009
8:15 am
Responding to criticism from former Vice President Cheney that President Obama is making the nation more vulnerable to terrorism, the president’s National Security Adviser, Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.), told ABC News in an exclusive interview that actually the reverse is true: President Obama’s greater success with international relations has meant more terrorists put out of commission.
Damn! Just think what he could’ve done with an education and connections and family money and… .
Scooter
September 1st, 2009
8:16 am
Normal, I don’t want a job that requires a suit & tie.
TnGelding
September 1st, 2009
8:19 am
Scooter
September 1st, 2009
8:09 am
Ok, this Friday.
bob
September 1st, 2009
8:22 am
Finn Mc Clown: I have no wit myself, so let me use other peoples lines.
Finn McCool
September 1st, 2009
8:24 am
Public Option rally in downtown Atlanta at noon on Thursday:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/search_results?orderby=zip_radius&zip_radius1=70&country=US&event_type=257&limit=70&radius_unit=miles&zip_radius0=30518
Scooter
September 1st, 2009
8:25 am
Dang TnG, I guess i’ll have to stay in suspence!
Turd Ferguson
September 1st, 2009
8:27 am
I guess Jenna followed in the footsteps of Chelsea Clinton.
mike
September 1st, 2009
8:28 am
What typical pettiness from the smallest of pundits.
I guess Jay would rather attack the daughter of a former President than note that Tom Ridge has been all over the TV the last 24 hours stating that he in no way intended to claim that the terror level was ever raised for political reasons, as Jay was crowing the other day. He certainly is going to acknowledge the Post article from Saturday which clearly demonstrates the waterboarding of KSM turned him into a key asset.
I mean would Jay ever pass up the opportunity to attack a child of a conservative in order to present both sides of a story? Or at least point out that Nancy Pelosi’s daughter has ridden the nepotism train to two (highly partisan) documenataries for HBO while Pelosi is still in offices? Nah. To do so would require intellectual honesty, not just naked partisanship.
mike
September 1st, 2009
8:30 am
Redneck Convert –
As always, thanks for your regular does of ignorant and hateful bigotry. What would we do without “tolerant” liberals showing us how to be respectful of others?
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator (-: You Whine )-:
September 1st, 2009
8:30 am
At least we know she has courage, putting herself at the mercy of the professional sneerers.
Brave, deserving people that they are.
Scooter
September 1st, 2009
8:31 am
Mrs. G, I’ll cut the kid some slack. I just wish she did’t have that smirk on her face like her dad.
Mrs. Godzilla
September 1st, 2009
8:35 am
Scooter
I know what you mean…..she looks just like her dad.
She may have gotten the job because of her maiden name, but
she might be delightful! Let’s watch and see and review later.
Taxpayer
September 1st, 2009
8:36 am
…Bush-era changes to the division’s permanent rank may also have lingering effects. From 2003 to 2007, Bush political appointees blocked liberals from career jobs and promotions, which they steered to fellow conservatives, whom one such official privately described as “real Americans,” a department inspector general report found. The practice, which no previous administration had done, violated civil service laws, it said…
jasper
September 1st, 2009
8:38 am
Glen seems to have left out the entire post 60’s Kennedy family from his list of priviledged and unqualified. I can appreciate that Libby reporter’s brains are still flying at half staff.
Finn McCool
September 1st, 2009
8:38 am
mike, do you even know what nepotism means?
nepotism [(nep-uh-tiz-uhm)]
Favoritism granted to relatives or close friends, without regard to their merit. Nepotism usually takes the form of employing relatives or appointing them to high office.
The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
I didn’t know Nancy appointed her daughter to something or gave her a high ranking office??
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
September 1st, 2009
8:41 am
As always, thanks for your regular does of ignorant and hateful bigotry. What would we do without “tolerant” liberals showing us how to be respectful of others?
Well, it’s the kindness of people like mike that keeps me going. He could of tore into me, but he settled for being nice. You’re more than welcome, mike.
Mrs. Godzilla
September 1st, 2009
8:45 am
Redneck Convert and wise man
mike’s joie de vivre graces this blog every day!
jt
September 1st, 2009
8:45 am
This is weird.
Phonetically, in the Farsi language, DOLE is vulgar slang for the male genitalia.
Phonetically, in the Farsi language, JENNA means sublime, cordial, sympathetic.(class).
Phonetically, in the Farsi language, AFGHAN means VIETNAM.
That last one is quite troubling.
Truth
September 1st, 2009
8:46 am
What merit did Obama have???
Northern Songs, Ltd.
September 1st, 2009
8:47 am
And yet Mike, here you are, every day, spewing your own “pettiness” from the smallest of bloggers. What exactly about “I don’t mean to pick on Jenna; she’s done nothing wrong” did you not comprehend? Idiot.
Brad Steel
September 1st, 2009
8:50 am
The media types could interview a Kennedy about the Kennedy meritocracy.
Turd Ferguson
September 1st, 2009
8:50 am
Look at most of you. What a shame. This girl is receiving the same treatment as most Presidential offspring and look at the sniping on this thread. Reminds me of jealous little 2nd grade girls all upset because lil Jenna has Pink ribbons in her hair.
If you malcontents and complainers had any self-esteem, besides low, you might somewhat more pleased with your own lot in life.
Just sad and pitiful.
Kayaker 71
September 1st, 2009
8:52 am
Bookman needs a Palin substitute to bash and defile. Look around you and see all the children of “famous people” who have benefited from being their offspring. Why is Bookman singling this one out…. can’t be because she is a Bush. Nah.
And by the way, what’s wrong with “personal responsibility and self-sufficiency”? If we had more of those two things, we probably would not need affirmative action.
Scooter
September 1st, 2009
8:52 am
That last one is quite troubling.
Amen jt!
thomas
September 1st, 2009
8:52 am
where was this same article about Caroline kennedy and her senate bid?
oops my bad democrat, forgot. stupid me!