Here's another scenario-- John X, a son of a single mom (hubby/daddy was killed at work, crushed in a factory accident), studies hard, works hard, negotiates the wrong-side-of-the-tracks labyrinth of gangs, drug abuse, despair, dangerous friends, etc..., earning an ROTC pilot's scholarship at a small Southern college, gets his degree, meets the love of his life, marries her, earns a master's, qualifies as a helicopter pilot, goes to Vietnam and gets killed. Heartbroken and rent with despair, his mother herself dies of cold after the heating bill goes unpaid. His widow works the counter at a Dairy Queen in Seminole, Nebraska.

Meanwhile, John Z, the scion of a fabulously wealthy family of robber barons, Nazi sympathisers, and oilmen, drinks his way into Yale where he baffles his professors with his bellicose manner and inability to reason or understand what is presented him, and where he makes important personal connections with others of similar background. Fearing the draft, daddy signs young John up for a coveted post with the Air National Guard, liberating him from the dangers of South East Asian cuisine. Young Mr. Z washes out of training and goes AWOL for 17 months straight, by most accounts heavily self-medicated with cocaine and alcohol, fending off police accounts of domestic violence and abuse. Landing on his feet yet again, our plucky young hero finds himself president of a small oil drilling company, which amazes the petroleum world by miraculously winning a giant contract, over other much more qualified firms, drilling the Bahraini offshore wells. In spite of this bit of impressive American entrepreneurialism, his company goes belly up. Undaunted, daddy arranges for young John to own a successful baseball team. The team tanks, but young John's acquaintanceship with the movers and shakers of a giant Southern state allows him to make himself useful as governor, where he whiles his time signing "business-friendly" legislation and snorting cocaine in the kitchen at a popular Austin restaurant. He also spends several hours a day studying spaghetti Westerns, imitating Clint Eastwood's brand of proto-tough guy clenched teeth swagger. Having proven himself loyal to the powers-that-be, young John is appointed President of the United States by Supreme Court Justices, many of whom owe their position to daddy, and brings the world to the brink of apocalypse. After a round of golf and boating with Daddy, he laughs, "Democrats are just jealous."

I hate to alienate any member of my tiny fan base, but Dale, get a grip. Have you ever been to an inner city? Or El Paso?

db