01.20.09
No to Caroline Kennedy
Do not take my silence on Caroline Kennedy as an endorsement. I’ve just been busy.
I am almost as offended that Caroline Kennedy is being considered for New York senator as I was when McCain picked Palin. I say “almost” because Senators do not have authority to fire nuclear missles. Selecting Caroline Kennedy is merely a bad idea, not scary.
I am dismayed with my own party that they are not raising a bigger stink about her. Somehow the magic of the Kennedy name seems to be enough to quiet lots of people. Huh?
Now, I am willing to believe that being part of a political family can be useful. You do learn things at the dinner table. (My father was a professor of Physics; I was in college before I realized that not everybody drew free-body diagrams on napkins over dinner.) So Caroline Kennedy might have learned something from her father.
Except that she stopped having dinner with her father when she was six.
Maybe her mother helped instill political savvy into Caroline. I wasn’t there, I don’t know, but I never heard much about Jackie Kennedy Onassis being much into politics.
I think Sarah Palin would be much more credible as a senator. Palin’s limitations — her lack of sophistication in both foreign and national-level — made her IMHO a poor choice to represent the U.S. to the world. However, she’s held office, she understand politics, is a proven campaigner, and is strongly Alaskan. She is certainly a legitimate choice to represent Alaska to the nation. (I wouldn’t vote for her, but that’s because I don’t like her politics, not because I think she’s unqualified.)
Kennedy, sorry. I don’t see how she qualifies.
