Henry Hager in High Society

Here's the Washington Post on the Hager family:

The nation's first family tree is about to gain a new branch. The future in-laws, it turns out, are not unlike the Bushes.

Henry Hager, 29, who was engaged to Jenna Bush, 25, in August, hails from a world of good breeding and foregone conclusions. His parents, who live in the West End of Richmond, are staples of their society. Like the Bushes, with their prominent forebears and their best schools, the Hagers are a Good Family, in the old sense of the phrase.

So much about the Hager family reminds you of how things used to be.

Like many old cities, Richmond has changed -- and it hasn't. Many of the trappings of the Hagers' lives pay homage to the way Richmond once was. Henry's parents, John and Maggie [above], are regulars on the cocktail party circuit and members of the Country Club of Virginia near their house. Margaret Chase Hager, 66, the product of prep schools and Richmond's debutante culture, was raised by an almost mythic woman who -- as one of Henry Hager's first cousins remembers it -- rode sidesaddle on a white horse she called Lady Godiva, and never wore a pair of pants in her life.

(Somehow, Good Families always have good legends.)

John, 71, formerly Virginia's lieutenant governor, has for decades been part of a small group of Republican-leaning business leaders in Richmond who recruit and fund local and state politicians. Statewide, he is the ubiquitous John Hager, known for attending the smallest of gatherings on the chicken dinner circuit (and always writing thank-yous).

Recently he was elected chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, a position in which his networking and fundraising talents will no doubt come in handy.

OYE Comment:

Even the Washington Post social page chose to skip John Hager's service in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves, which is mentioned in his official biography, to avoid calling attention to his son Henry's conspicuous failure even to consider doing so.

But Real Americans aren't fooled. Look at the Comments.