Blogs and Stories
If Hillary Is Worthy, Then So Is Caroline
Elizabeth Wurtzel opined this week that Kennedy’s life has been “handed to her.” To that, all I can say is if anyone tried to hand me a life as full of grief and tragedy I’d be taking several quick steps backward with my mitts clasped firmly behind my back.
Her life may have been materially rich, but it has been emotionally ravaging. If personal narrative is how we pick our politicians these days, as it so often is, then hers is a story that conveys real experience with the spectrum of loss—the sudden and unforeseen and the cruelly lingering. It implies an empathy with suffering that might very well be one of the most essential qualifications for governing this country at this time.
Wurtzel was also troubled that Kennedy hasn’t run for anything. And yes, it would be better if these Senate vacancies were handled with a special ballot instead of a Sistine Chapel-style finger-of-governor anointing. But Kennedy will get her chance to run in a bare two years, and Democrats who feel dissed or voters who remain underwhelmed will be able to boot her if they choose.
Remember when Teddy Kennedy got his Senate seat? Everybody said pretty much exactly what they are now saying about his niece: unqualified, overprivileged, riding on his family name and narrative in an entitled and dynastic way that was anti-democratic, anti-American. And yet Teddy turned out to be the best thing that happened for the liberal agenda in the last, mostly miserable, three decades.
When Grover Norquist boasted that he wanted to shrink government so small you could fit it in the bathtub and sink it, it was Kennedy who lashed himself to the mast and fought for the programs that make life even marginally livable for poor Americans. There is every reason to think that Caroline, in time, will be exactly the same kind of dogged, effective, productive liberal, and one who is perhaps even less threatening to the other side of the aisle.
Those who want the Obama presidency to succeed know that he is going to need stalwart allies in the Senate, and she’s already a maximum insider who will be able to eloquently argue the president’s case.
Full disclosure: I’ve met Kennedy and dined with her family during their low-key vacations on Martha’s Vineyard, where I live year round. The summer before last, I was at a backyard fundraiser for Obama when Kennedy, her husband, and kids turned up. This created a little buzz as Kennedy’s support was then with Clinton, and the Obama campaign was still seen as a fine but quixotic thing, destined to be crushed in due course beneath the Hillary juggernaut.
Obama was brilliant that night—great stump speech; full, frank, erudite answers to questions. Kennedy kept her counsel at the time, but some months later, after she fulsomely endorsed Obama, she said it had been her kids’ reactions to his inspirational quality that had convinced her to support him. That same quality may be what motivates her now.
Geraldine Brooks is an author and journalist who worked for The Sydney Morning Herald for three years as a writer with a special interest in environmental issues. Brooks has worked for The Wall Street Journal, where she covered crises in the the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2006 for her novel March, and her novel Year of Wonders is an international best seller. She is the author of Nine Parts of Desire and Foreign Correspondence.
10 Power Food Combos
Divya Gugnani is the CEO and founder of BehindtheBurner.com, an emerging culinary media brand that creates expert-based content about food, wine, mixology, and nutrition.
How Obama Wins in 2012
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.
Socialized Medicine Saved Me
Geraldine Brooks is an author and former foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, where she covered the Mideast, Africa and the Balkans. Her recent novels include the bestseller, People of the Book, and March, which won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her non fiction works include Nine Parts of Desire:the Hidden World of Islamic Women.
Iran's Hillary Clinton
Geraldine Brooks is an author and former foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, where she covered the Mideast, Africa and the Balkans. Her recent novels include the bestseller, People of the Book, and March, which won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her non fiction works include Nine Parts of Desire:the Hidden World of Islamic Women.
How Barack 'Hussein' Obama Is Charming Iran
Geraldine Brooks is an author and former foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, where she covered the Mideast, Africa and the Balkans. Her recent novels include the bestseller, People of the Book, and March, which won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her non fiction works include Nine Parts of Desire:the Hidden World of Islamic Women.
cajola
I think Caroline Kennedy would be a great choice for Hillary's seat in the Senate...she comes from a very political family and has done a good job in raising money for different causes.
Caroline, like the rest of the Kennedy's are all for the working class and she would be an asset.
Not one to grab the limelight but rather act behind the scenes, but will be able to connect to the average person I feel if she got the chance of becoming Senator for New York.
Veronicaxy
I say this as someone whose knowledge of the woman is strictly at the tabloid level...
Caroline is a little older than me and I grew up with her as the reluctant Kennedy. In her teen years she seemed sullen and withdrawn in front of the cameras and had a reputation for rebelling against her mom (which was understandable). It was all mild though, considering. Still it was surprising to see her morph as an adult into probably everything her mother (and most mothers) would have wanted for their daughter's life.
The strength and judgment she's shown to lead a quiet, productive life is admirable.
So she's cashing in chips that very few have to cash in, I have to say I'm glad to see her do it -- give her the two years and let the voters go from there. We've seen wives of dead senators and friends of presidents take over with far fewer qualifications.
And Caroline is not a newcomer to the world of power, she's going ramp-up faster than most to Washington D.C. with an enviable assortment of been-there relatives and friends who will mentor and coach her.
If she does take the role, I hope she soars. But if she tastes it and retires back into the private life she's seemed to prefer over the years, I'd understand that too.
It will be interesting.
delljody
She experienced a tragedy! She reads poetry! And since she's famous, of course she'll use that to achieve greatness!
This entire article is about the author's admiration of Kennedy--NOT why New Yorkers should accept her as their Senator. Every supporter of her appointment ignores the tiny fact that she would be unelected, and that New Yorkers will eventually have to decide whether they want her representing them.
NY, IL, DE and now CO should ideally have special elections instead of governors and Harry Reid picking who they like in the Senate. Then Caroline might actually have to, you know, become a politician and campaign.
Then again, some of the Kennedy sheen would probably wear off if she did that. She might turn out not to be the hyper-intelligent, sensitive, automatically capable figure that her supporters assume she is. (See Kathleen Kennedy Townshend in MD.)
hammer
If Al Franken and Arnold Schwartznegger are qualified then Caroline Kennedy easily exceeds the minimum requirements. Experience is not as important as talent, energy and ideals. Caroline Kennedy eaily meets those requirements. The 12% approval rating of the US Congress shows that experience has little to do with good government and policy. Its time for new ideas and new faces to replace the incestuous ingrained Congress.
bheaney
Most of the incumbent senators had to work hard to get there. This is so un-Kennedy-fair. When is America going to stop genuflecting when a Kennedy enters the room?
Cicero
re: Clinton: Two wrongs make a right now?
Western democracy is founded on a rejection of biological dynasties. They are, however, creeping back in. It isn't that she isn't qualified. Lots of senators have thin credentials. It's that whenever you allow something like this, or Clinton, or Bush jr., or Beau Biden, you erode the rejection of hereditary rule and ultimately begin to imperil the American democratic experiment. Don't roll your eyes. I used the word erode deliberately. Erosion happens slowly and almost imperceptably, and then all at once the foundations of your house fall into the sea.
jetsfan123
I was expecting a well written essay that benchmarks Caroline Kennedy's skills and political / business experiences to those of previous NY Senators. What I got was a love letter. Clinton,the very least, legitimately campaigned for her Senate seat.
Mary50
jetsfan123, you said it all.
Anonymously
If this endorsement of Caroline Kennedy is the best anyone can come up with, then she is truly unqualified to be the next Senator of New York.
On a most basic level, experience, Ms. Brooks appears to be grasping at straws. She fails to name a single _work_ accomplishment of Ms. Kennedy. Indeed Ms. Kennedy has some limited experience that could be highlighted, but nowhere in this article does Ms. Brooks provide a single reason, drawing from Ms. Kennedy's work experience, to distinguish her in any way from any other law school graduate.
Rather, and this is simply insane, Ms. Brooks projects a personal narrative onto Ms. Kennedy that "implies" certain qualities about her, and then rationalizes why these qualities not only distinguish Ms. Kennedy, but make her qualified to be a Senator for New York State.
She then digs an even deeper hole by analogizing Caroline Kennedy with Ted Kennedy. This argument is absurd on its face. Because her Uncle has performed well in the Senate, the niece will as well? On what bizarro planet does this make any sense? Like Ms. Brooks, I'll ignore the offensive nepotism inherent in this argument. It's been well-addressed elsewhere.
I have to question whether there are any editors at The Daily Beast or any criteria for selecting articles. I'm from Massachusetts, liberal, and, predictably, a supporter of Ted Kennedy and predisposed to (irrationally) supporting the family's activities. But this article is such an atrocious, irrational, substanceless endorsement of Caroline Kennedy, I have to wonder how it got published.
And if I was Caroline Kennedy, I'd be embarrassed that this is the best anyone could come up with to support me. Ms. Brooks makes Ms. Kennedy sound utterly pathetic.
roosno2
"Muddy upstate barns."
That's all we are. We don't matter. Thanks for that!
Why doesn't she take Teddy's seat.
This is just pathetic.
roosno2
"Muddy upstate barns."
Thanks for that. That's all we are to you. We want a senator from the rest of New York.
MattyfromtheBX
But thats the thing. Hillary wasn't qualified. Nor was she even a New Yorker. The Clintons purchased a home in the place they felt Hillary would have the best chance of winning and that happened to be New York. They had never lived or showed any interest in New York prior to them leaving the White House. Had Rudy not gotten Cancer, I'm not so sure Hillary would have even become a Senator. But as a New Yorker, I would say she did a fairly good job, but better than someone else could have done? I don't know. But at least she won the seat fair and square and wasn't handed the seat because she supported Al Gore. And it comes down to this...I am sure Caroline Kennedy is a good person and does a good job running the New York Ballet and raising money for various causes, but is she the most qualified person or woman for that matter for the job? Any objective person who is aware of the many New Yorkers who could potentially fill the seat and have earned their positions without a popular name would have to say...NO.
bobbiewick
Why not?
Because there are about a dozen far more qualified, experienced and committed candidates who are deserving of that position. For a list of them, look elsewhere on TDB.
As for the "tempered by personal tragedy" stuff, you are getting into Oscar Wilde/Little Nell territory with that. To quote Dorothy Parker, "I may fwow up" the next time somebody advances the notion that being America's Orphan is a qualification for being handed great power.
If you feel sorry for Caroline, why don't you just send her a plant or something.
southernyankee
I think she would be an asset to the senate. She is just as qualified as Hillary was. If I lived in NY I would vote for her.
maxpower1013
I'm sure you can find dozens of people with similar "qualifications." Why not give them a try
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.