John Quincy Adams learned the rudiments of politics from his father, who preceded him as president by two dozen years. Calvin Coolidge was sworn into the presidency by his father, who administered the oath of office by the light of an oil lamp at 2:47 on a Vermont morning. John F. Kennedy was shaped by his father, a tycoon-turned-ambassador.
They were not alone. George W. Bush witnessed the gentility of his presidential father, George H.W. Bush, who in turn had been tutored by his senatorial father, Prescott Bush. A dozen presidents, from George Washington to Barack Obama — and in modern times Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton — were influenced by the absence or early deaths of their fathers.
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