“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” So say our political families as they try to pass the torch on to generations of clunkers who dine out on the family name, even as the franchise rots.

This idea seems to imply that family members are assembly-line products who turn out more or less the same kind of people through years and/or generations, through practice suggests it’s not true. In the 18th and 19th centuries, John Adams, a founder, a diplomat, a vice president, and our second president, had one son who became our sixth president and two sons who were wastrels.