Lynne Cheney, Dick Cheney wife, according to Reuters discovered that her hubby is eighth cousins with the senator from Illinois and Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama. While the latter, for election reasons, advocates a US troop withdrawal and a few cosmetic changes to US social policies, they do have a lot in common - including a common ancestor named Mareen Devall, a 17th century immigrant from France. Lynne said she discovered the link through family research for her new book, “Blue Skies, No Fences,” about growing up in Wyoming. No need to delve into that then if the genes are the problem.
Politicians share so many despicable personality characteristics, and I always wondered why evolution created them. And while I still don’t have a satisfactory answer, this piece of trivia might point to a mechanism: a common ancestor. Why stop with Devall when Ramesses II, Nero and Hitler already existed? And what about Bush, Blair, Howard and Saddam Hussein all sitting in the same gene pool? That actually is not so hard to image as it may seem. Between them for example, the former three killed more Iraqis in a year than Hussein during his whole two decade plus reign, and each of them is responsible for more innocent Iraqi deaths than the dictator.
Given how difficult it seems to be for nature to breed out ruthlessness, pretentiousness, deception, selfishness and megalomania, all to be found in the politician-personality, common ancestor research into the potentiality of an equivalent sub-species might be worthwhile - especially if we could find a way to help nature with some genetic manipulation.
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