Politics in here New York reminds me of sex in West Virginia. It's all relative...er...relatives.

Very little is being done about the rampant corruption on Wall St. A significant part of this is due to having an empty suit as New York's Attorney General. Andrew Cuomo simply isn't doing his job. His father, Mario Cuomo, was an excellent governor, but that is hardly any reason to let his lackluster son trade on that name.

In the November 2008 elections on Staten Island, the Republican candidates for Congress and Supreme Court were related. The Democrats were husband and wife. The Congressional seat was held before by Vito "Mr. DWI" Fosella, who got where he is in politics based on his family name.

That punctuates the depressing nature of news reports that Andrew Cuomo and another undeserving member of a prominent political family, Caroline Kennedy, are the frontrunners on the list of people who might be chosen by Gov. Paterson to fill the seat of Hillary Clinton. Of course, she is someone else whose rise in politics was due to trading on a family name.

I'm not going to pretend that this massive nepotism is unique to New York. Look at the evil Bush KKKlan members who have been in elected office in other states. Al Gore never would have gotten anywhere in politics if not for his family. There are Kennedy's in office in several states. However, nepotism in office is quite common in New York, where the government is much more inept than in most parts of the country.

This is so banana republic.

Members of prominent political families have relatives and cronies that pressure members of their parties to go along with their political aspirations. More competent and deserving people are squeezed out.

This might seem unfair to the politicians who don't have the right names, but I'm more worried about the public. Oligarchies are undemocratic and breed corruption and ineptitude. We have seen what a terrible senator Hillary Clinton has been, and Jeb Bush was an execrable governor in Florida. Then, there's always George W. Bush.....

There really should be a constitutional amendment to ban grandparents, parents, spouses, siblings, uncles, nephews, children, grandchildren, and first cousins from being able to hold appointed or elected office. In a country of over 300,000,000 people, no one can seriously claim that we will lack qualified people to take their place. On the contrary, banning nepotism in office would increase the quality and competence of office holders.

In American, anybody can be President, but it helps to have certain parents.