The Kennedy Mystique

I can’t believe that New York Governor David Patterson will actually appoint Caroline Kennedy to Hillary Clinton’s senate seat, but I thought I’d better write about it while it’s still a possibility. I have to believe that after reading her interviews in the New York papers that he wouldn’t dare, but hey, I’m the guy who said Hillary would never be appointed Secretary of State.

The interviews were nothing short of atrocious. Here’s a short example of her style and rhythm:

DH: Why is it that you apparently did not give Senator Clinton any kind of advance warning that you’d be coming out for Senator Obama?
CK: Um, I’m not going to talk about that particular process, but —
DH: Why’s that?
CK: Because those conversations that I have had and had during that time are not something that I think is relevant right now.
NC: How come it isn’t relevant? It kind of goes to your relationship with the person that you’re trying to succeed in the Senate.
CK: I think this is about the future, and, um, you know, that’s what I want to talk about, which is, what’s going on in our state, you know, why I would be the best person to help deliver for New York. We’re facing, you know, an economic crisis, the paper this morning said there’s, you know, five billion dollars of construction projects which just stopped, you know, that’s, you know — conversations a year ago, that’s — beside that, I don’t, as I said, I have conversations with a lot of people, and those are confidential.

Well there you go. For those of you counting, that was six “you knows” in two sentences. The rest of the interview is simply vapid. It’s hard to believe she is a lawyer. In fact, I suspect that she is a lawyer in name only. And by that I mean that she has never practiced law in any real sense, although she does have a law degree. From what I can see she has spent her life on various boards of various charitable organizations and a volunteer job (for $1 per year) for the NYC Dept of Education, where it has been reported, she never showed up. She also didn’t show up to vote according to records, and hasn’t given money to any candidates to speak of. When she has given support, her intentions remain murky. For instance, she gave money to Hillary Clinton for her senate run as well as her presidential campaign. She then turned around and publicly endorsed her opponent, Barrack Obama. (HRC then gave back $2,300 of her contribution) That was generally seen as the death blow to HRC. And when asked about her voting intentions she declared that even though she had worked for the campaign of New York mayor Michael Bloomberg (an Independent) she would be voting for the Democrat candidate. So that clears that up.

I hate to get personal about this, but I suspect that, like her brother (couldn’t pass the bar); she’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Whenever they talk about her pedigree, it’s often overlooked that her mother was something of an airhead. And her father’s singular intellectual accomplishment was winning the Pulitzer Prize by submitting Profiles in Courage for publication (Ted Sorenson wrote it.) Don’t get me wrong. JFK was a rock ribbed cold warrior, tax cutting conservative who was gunned down by a radical leftist. That made sense at the time, but then Democrats turned his legacy (myth) into a civil rights visionary who was cut down by the “forces of intolerance.” He wasn’t. He was dragged, kicking and screaming into the civil rights debate. Memoirs and first hand accounts have shown that he was deeply suspicious and distrustful of Martin Luther King. They really had no idea where he (MLK) was going to end up and therefore were concerned about appearing to support him. Civil rights did not get serious presidential support until LBJ. Anyway, Caroline Kennedy has many people pulling for her and they are not deterred by the comparisons to Sarah Palin on qualifications. The wacko Dems are still saying that getting elected mayor of Wasilla and then governor of Alaska just can’t compare to holding down a no show, $1 a year volunteer job with the NY public schools. At least not if your last name is Schlossberg, um I mean, you know, Kennedy.