Word: waspdom
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...shortest route to Waspdom, when it was still the new arrival's destination of choice, was the swapping of an ethnic name for an "American" one. A case in point...
...right now. But Bush is more post-Wasp than genuine article. Thomas Jefferson didn't think in cliches and speak in mush. There is also a lot worse in Wasp history than George Bush's inarticulateness, with slavery standing at the top of the list. The best defense of Waspdom is that it always included people who saw that slavery was wrong, and when it came to a fight, they won the war and (thanks to Lincoln) the argument. The way of the Wasp contained the correctives for its vices. It is the matrix of most of the good that...
SINCE the turn of the century when it was simply another bastion of fine American WASPdom, Harvard has slowly evolved into a more open-minded institution...
...credentials of a would-be member than the upper-crustiest men's club in London. But in most of the South, as one historian has observed, noblesse oblige has yielded to bourgeoisie oblige-even at the country club, traditionally the most closely guarded bastion of upper-class Southern Waspdom. Richmond's Country Club of Virginia, once a haven for FFVs (First Families of Virginia), now has 5,600 members (family membership is $5,000, plus annual dues starting at $660) and does not demand a blue-blood test of applicants. Nowadays, as the eminent Virginius Dabney, retired editor...
Thus Roman Catholics like William Buckley, Sargent Shriver and Ted Kennedy are pushed toward Waspdom by their associations, professions and life styles. Though German Jewish, Walter Lippmann is still a Waspirant. His clubs (Metropolitan, Cosmos, River) and his influence on opinion give him undeniable Wasp power. Wall Street Dynasts John Schiff and John Loeb may qualify, if they want, as honorary Wasps. So may Walt Whitman Rostow, who has been a top aide of Lyndon Johnson and beats most Wasps at tennis...
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