Fine Whine
“Uncle Teddy! I’m bored!”
Howie Carr on Caroline’s “candidacy.” Boston Herald:
If her name were Caroline Schlossberg, her candidacy would be a joke.
History is repeating itself - and this time it’s even more farcical than in 1962, when Eddie McCormack, the state attorney general, uttered his famous put-down of then-29-year-old playboy Ted Kennedy:
“If your name were Edward Moore, your candidacy would be a joke.”
The difference between Massachusetts 1962 and New York 2008 is that Teddy had to run for the office. Forty-six years later, his niece Caroline expects - no, demands - to have a Senate seat handed to her, on a silver platter.
Elections? Kennedys don’t need no stinkin’ elections.
Apparently the U.S. doesn’t have a Senate anymore. We have a House of Lords. Instead of seats, we have peerages.
By now everyone has noticed that all the media hags who were so bent out of shape about Sarah Palin’s alleged lack of experience are touting Caroline’s deep hands-on credentials as . . . honorary chairman of the American Ballet Theater.
Not chairman, mind you. Honorary chairman.
Imagine a petulant, spoiled, rich 8-year-old dropped off with her dissipated relatives for the weekend. Imagine her plaintive cry:
“Uncle Teddy! I’m bored!”
At least out in Illinois, Jesse Jackson Jr. was pressured to pony up $1.5 million for his appointment to a Senate seat. Caroline wanted it the way her family always gets things: on the arm. If this is how they run things in Albany now, give me the Chicago way any day.
I’m sure she’ll be a reliable vote for higher taxes. Kennedys always are, except for when it comes to paying their own, especially estate taxes. Do as they say, not as they do. As Leona Helmsley used to say: Taxes are for little people.
Apparently, so is voting. Caroline’s got better things to do than stand in line at some sweaty precinct with the hoi polloi, enduring the foul breath of the plebeians.
She gets the seat, of course. Her main opponent is the state attorney general, scion of a lesser political dynasty. Andrew Cuomo happens to be the ex-husband of Caroline’s cousin, Kerry Kennedy. In a nice twist, Kerry has been making the case for her cousin on TV: “She’s a mother and a woman!” And you thought Caroline had no qualifications.
“We live in a country where one out of every five girls is sexually assaulted by the time she’s 21.”
Is this a good talking point for any Kennedy, male or female?
Krauthammer says the same thing, only without the Kennedy jokes …
I hate to be a good-government scold, but wasn’t the American experiment a rather firm renunciation of government by pedigree?
Yes, of course, we have our own history of dynastic succession: Adamses and Harrisons, and in the last century, Roosevelts, Kennedys and Bushes. Recently, we’ve even branched out into Argentine-style marital transmission, as in the Doles and the Clintons.
It’s not the end of the world, but it is an accelerating trend that need not be encouraged.
…
Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Caroline Kennedy. She seems a fine person. She certainly has led the life of a worthy socialite helping all the right causes. But when the mayor of New York endorses her candidacy by offering, among other reasons, that “her uncle has been one of the best senators that we have had in an awful long time,” we’ve reached the point of embarrassment.
Krauthammer elaborates on the Kennedy history with another germane point:
Nor is Ms. Kennedy alone in her sense of entitlement. Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s Senate seat will now be filled by Edward Kaufman, a family retainer whom no one ever heard of before this week. And no one will hear from him after two years, at which time Kaufman will dutifully retire. He understands his responsibility: Keep the Delaware Senate seat warm for two years until Joe’s son returns from Iraq to assume his father’s mantle.
This, of course, is the Kennedy way. In 1960, John Kennedy’s Senate seat was given to his Harvard roommate, one Ben Smith II (priceless name). He stayed on for two years - until Teddy reached the constitutional age of 30 required to succeed his brother.
In light of the pending dynastic disposition of the New York and Delaware Senate seats, the Illinois way is almost refreshing. At least Gov. Rod Blagojevich (allegedly) made Barack Obama’s seat democratically open to all. Just register the highest bid, eBay style.
Reader poll at the Howie link, by the way,
Topics: pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:02 am on Sunday, December 21, 2008
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