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Uh, Qualified?
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Mike Segar/Reuters
Caroline Kennedy is seeking Hillary Clinton's Senate seat, but she has mostly spent her life as a mother, a wife, and, most ceremoniously, a daughter. That doesn't make her qualified.
Nostalgia aside, why would anyone think it a good idea to appoint Caroline Bouvier Kennedy as the replacement senator for New York? Are we not at long last tired of turning the reins of government over to the underqualified offspring of former presidents?
Caroline Kennedy has shown no evidence of being able to hold down a regular job—all her fundraising work has been voluntary—so the only logic for making the Senate her first employment opportunity is that we actually like the amateur hour that has become the Congress. Kennedy is a Harvard graduate with a law degree who has written a few books and duly served the public on some prestigious committees and blue-ribbon panels. I don’t want to scare anybody, but on this basis, I could be the succeeding senator to Hillary Clinton’s abandoned post. If all it takes are some fancy credentials and some impressive hobnobbing, I daresay the Senate is open to many comers.
Kennedy, whose whole life has been handed to her, is once again about to have her whole life handed to her. Is this what we really want?
Do not misunderstand me: I know Kennedy is far more than some lady who lunches and then serves oranges to the homeless at the church soup kitchen. She has raised $65 million for New York City’s school system, no small sum. I know she is the keeper of the Camelot flame, a position that entails some effort and élan. And I realize that just being daughter of a president, and of course a Kennedy, is a substantial qualification for government work: Growing up in a political world is fine preparation for a public life.
But there’s got to be more going on. It’s not enough merely to exercise the opportunities availed to you because you just happen to be born on third base. It’s not even enough to perform the duties of legacy with grace and intelligence, which Caroline Kennedy appears to have done. I would like to think the Senate is a repository for people who have achieved something on their own—even if the only thing is the act of running for office, a demand we don’t even seem to be making in this case. Kennedy, whose whole life has been handed to her, is once again about to have her whole life handed to her.
Is this what we really want?
Perhaps it is: Even in parvenu America, noblesse oblige is as good an impetus as any, and many of our best (and a couple of our worst) leaders have been to the manor born. We have a tradition of electing officials with last names like Roosevelt and Adams and, of course, Kennedy, and we are often pleased with the results. Dynasty is not un-American, even if it is anti-democratic. Conversely, some of our most naturally gifted presidents of recent years—Nixon and Clinton come to mind—came right out of the dogpatch and spent a good deal of their public lives struggling with their upstart demons to the detriment of just getting the job done. It was far better to live in ancient Judea in the time of King Solomon, who was born a prince, than in the turbulent days of King David, who started his life as a simple shepherd.
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
Justice Clinton?
As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today's rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
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Elizabeth Wurtzel is author of Prozac Nation, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women, and More, Now, Again. She has been popular music critic for the New Yorker and New York magazine, and the film reviewer for Nerve.
Candidate Caroline Is Off to a Bad Start
Elizabeth Wurtzel is author of Prozac Nation, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women, and More, Now, Again. She has been popular music critic for the New Yorker and New York magazine, and the film reviewer for Nerve.
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n--Y--longcrlmelindaste
typo in last paragraph on first page: some of our "most" naturally gifted presidents
Tulku2
The Senate was created to equal the House of Lords. The Senate was intended as a moat between the rich and the hoi poli. I am a democrat, little "d" and think the Senate should be abolished. The Founding Fathers were a group of rich, white men who set up the Senate to tilt things in their favor.
I always smile when i see Carloline. She should run for the Senate. I'm for dumping the whole construct of the Senate. It's not handed down from God, after all. Thomas Jefferson wrote we have a right.. nay a DUTY... to make a revolution every thirty years so as to set the government up to suit each generation. Where is that old American spirit?!
sophia5
Oh just give Caroline the job already. What qualifications does she need other than being a part of an outdated myth known as "American Royalty." Washington needs another excuse for more cocktail parties where politicians can mingle and sell their souls to the highest bidder as they outsource whatever is left of this country. Why get serious now? I can see Washington from my Park Avenue Penthouse ... you betcha.
Leslie
I agree with Elizabeth Wurtzel. Caroline Kennedy does not deserve to fill Hillary's NY Senate seat. If a Kennedy is to replace Hillary, it should be Robert. I hope Gov. Patterson has the guts "to do the right thing" and appoint anyone but Caroline.
SamThornton
Caroline's qualifications? There are three formal quals she has to fulfill: 1) At least 30 years old. Check. 2) Citizen for at least 9 years. Check. 3) Resident of state. Check.
As to other qualifications, all one has to do is look at the Senate record for the last few years to make even the question of qualifications ludicrous in the extreme.
justify
Jane Hamsher wrote this same column a week ago at firedoglake: http://firedoglake.com/2008/12/07/caroline-kennedy-thanks-but-no-thanks/
magicman
I'm going to have to agree completely with 'longcrl' above. If there isn't a wife, a Housewife, a mother, a philanthropist, a community organizer, with a Harvard Law degree in the Senate, then there should be. The fact that her Father dedicated his life to public service, and made some compromises, which included risking a lifelong love affair with his children, simply because the demand for his service to his Country was so great, then I don't know any person on earth more qualified. It is the heart that is missing in the Senate, not the head. The head shrinks of the Senate haven't protected anyone from Bankruptcy so far, so what is the risk in changing tacks now, or is that just simply too obvious for anyone to consider.
On another note, as predicted here, and inventing the new word 'horditive' in rebuttal of presumed 'stimulative' packages, I also want to applaud Carly Fiorina for her comments on Meet The Press today pointing out the exact phenomena predicted by this sole observer when the lame brained idea was first hatched. Do not give Banks any more money, unless you wish to see it go the 'Madoof' way.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
helenb1
Caroline Kennedy is just as qualified as many others who've been in the Senate. I agree with magicman. Besides, you look like you are more qualified to report on Brittany Spears than Caroline Kennedy.
humanrights
And what made Hillary Clinton qualified to become a New York senator?
I am fed up listening to the Kennedy bashers. Caroline deserves a chance. She will make the Senate more civilized. And if she does not go to the Senate, she should certainly be appointed US Ambassador to St. James, aka Great Britain. She would be perfect at the moment, as a lawyer who wrote a book on the Bill of Rights. Britain is reviewing its human rights legislation and we need an Ambassador with influence and credibility.
lolalola
Ah, ambassador to the Court of St. James! Just like her grandpa Joe. That would be a ideal way for history to repeat itself, and she'd do a much better job - he was a Nazi appeaser.
funkychicken
Qualifications, smualifications. As if membership in the House or Senate is reserved for only the best and brightest. Please. She's intelligent, engaged, politically aware, and seems to have high ethical standards. Wait a minute -- maybe she isn't qualified to be a politician.
CracklinMcSnaps
Anyone who voted for Obama (like me) really needs to find a different argument than 'she's unqualified'.
twinsister
I think Caroline Kennedy would make a fine senator. She wrote an important book on privacy which, alone, should
recommend her after an Administration (Bush) that trampled on the U.S. Constitition. Patricia Burstein
Thank you.
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