I’m willing to accept that Michael’s argument represents some of the reason why Harvard and Yale graduates represent such a large fraction of presidential candidates if you are willing to accept that it is almost certainly a minor reason.

Ignoring your implied put-down of all of the other top-ranked universities in the United States, not to mention the still-excellent-but-not-Ivy-League institutions, the first thing that leaps to mind is the idea of (shock!) a third event that causally influences both Yale/Harvard attendance and entry into politics.

Perhaps the wealth of a child’s family is a good predictor of both whether that child will get into Harvard/Yale and also of whether they get into the “worth considering” pool of presidential candidates?

Perhaps there are some politics-specific network effects, with attendance at your esteemed universities being simply an opportunity to meet the parents of co-students?

Perhaps students who attend Harvard/Yale are self-selecting, with students interested in a career in politics being overly represented in your universities’ applicant pools?

Perhaps the geography matters, with universities located in the North East of the United States being over-represented in federal politics even after allowing for the above?

For the benefit of readers, here is the relevant section of the article:

What’s the explanation for this extraordinary situation - with Yale/Harvard degree-holders making up less than two-tenths of 1% of the national population, but winning more than 83% of recent presidential nominations?…

Today, the most prestigious degrees don’t so much guarantee success in adulthood as they confirm success in childhood and adolescence. That piece of parchment from New Haven or Cambridge doesn’t guarantee you’ve received a spectacular education, but it does indicate that you’ve competed with single-minded effectiveness in the first 20 years of life.

And the winners of that daunting battle - the driven, ferociously focused kids willing to expend the energy and make the sacrifices to conquer our most exclusive universities - are among those most likely to enjoy similar success in the even more fiercely fought free-for-all of presidential politics.

By comparison, Australia requires that all visitors from everywhere except New Zealand have a visa. It’s a staggeringly simple and not overly expensive process that can happen online, but it’s a visa-requirement nonetheless.

It looks like the US is moving to an Australian-style system. They’re still calling it a “visa waiver,” but the requirement that I register before entering the US and that they reserve the right to deny my registration seems a lot like a visa to me. From the article:

Passengers travelling to the United States from countries whose citizens do not need visas must register online with the US government at least 72 hours before departure [from January 2009]

…

Although the new rule requires 72 hours advance registration, it will be valid for multiple entries over a two-year period. The rule will only apply to citizens of the 27 visa waiver programme countries

…

A Homeland Security official said the new measure would require the same information that passengers now have to include on the I-94 immigration form they must fill out before entering the US. He said Australia has been using a similar system for several years.

Presumably this means that the US will be more likely to start adding the newer members of the EU to the “visa waiver” programme.

Why didn’t he give a month ago?  In particular, why didn’t he give it before the DNC made their decision on Florida and Michigan?  Giving it after Hillary bows out will look like what it will be - a naked political attempt to convince her most ardent supporters to turn up on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November.  If he’d given it two months ago, it would have had at least a chance of being seen as an honest, even gracious attempt to reach out to the Hillary-voters and convince them that he believes in fighting all forms of bigotry.

I can imagine that their bones are stronger than healthy-weighted people, but are they sufficiently stronger to make up for the extra pressure in a fall (as opposed to just walking around)?

8 May 2008:

7 May 2008:

• They’re arseholes. These are generally not nice people and caring about their citizens is, well, not all that important to them.
• Like North Korea, Zimbabwe and other pariah states, they have an overdeveloped sense of paranoia, believing that any representative of any foreign power will necessarily be seeking to topple them.
• They’re crazy. And I do mean loopy. The current site of the capital was chosen by astrologers. The people in charge believe in magic.
• Even if they weren’t crazy arseholes with overdeveloped senses of paranoia, they’re a developing country and it’s The West that’s offering to help. That’s the same West that a couple of months ago was calling them bad names for beating a few (thousand) monks. They don’t like us and even if they need our help, that we offer it appears arrogant to them.

Update:
And of course …

• Even if they weren’t crazy, paranoid arseholes who resent the West, there’s always an underlying shame in asking for help.  It’s almost always seen by somebody, either the giver, the receiver or a looker-on, as symbolic of weakness.
• What Adam said.