The Bushes are the family nobody really knows, says Kevin Phillips. This popular lack of acquaintance—nurtured by gauzy imagery of Maine summer cottages, gray-haired national grandmothers, July Fourth sparklers, and cowboy boots—has let national politics create a dynasticized presidency that would have horrified America’s founding fathers. They, after all, had led a revolution against a succession of royal Georges.

Sheesh Reg, that description could have just as easily been written about the Kennedy dynasty. Just substitute Mass. for Maine and penny loafers for cowboy boots and it'd be a done deal.