You should retitle this piece the Hypocrisy of Caroline's defenders.

1. The NY Democrats went out and ASKED Hillary to run. Caroline Kennedy, with the support of Uncle Teddy, catapulted herself into this media maelstrom with no qualifications whatsoever and is was putting forth the notion that if she want's it, it must be hers. Talk about entitlement. And after Hillary got the nomination, she faced a tough general election where she put herself to the test of NY voters.

2. Caroline was the daughter of a President who intentionally avoided taking political stands for 51 years. Hillary was involved in politics and policy before she met Bill. She was involved in women's and children's, legal services entirely apart from Bill; as First Lady of Arkansas and the US she took actual stands and worked on things like education reform, healthcare. She had very public political positions that she took political heat for. Caroline Kennedy raises money and gives out awards.

3. Caroline Kennedy won't deign to do more than a PR approved sound bite "press conference". She's more Chelsea Clinton than Hillary at this point.

4. Not making any financial disclosure? Seriously? Yeah I am sure Hillary would have gotten away with that.

Obama had less experience than the other contenders, but he had significant enough experience to made him qualified to seek the role. Caroline Kennedy is a blank slate. No political positions before December 2008 other than she hearts Obama. The crown of her coming out party to the world of politics should not be a Senate seat. And the real hypocrites are the people who accused Hillary of pressuring Obama in the press for VP or other roles in his administration who have nothing to say with this external to NY pressure on Paterson.

41% of NYers say Caroline Kennedy is unqualified. Have Obama give her a role in his administration where she gets two years of experience, declare her intention to run in 2010 (which may clear some people who are currently willing to be considered), and actually work for the seat. Make your case to the people of NY. Hillary was given nothing - she worked for it. Caroline Kennedy might want to take a page from her book rather than expect the seat to be hers because she's a Kennedy.

I was initially glad to see Caroline put her name in for consideration because she could bring a breath ethics to the Senate. Imagine my dismay to see the scum she choose to run interference for her or the reverend Al, who is also ethically challenged.

Jerry Nadler on the other hand is very qualified, tenacious, intelligent and, for a politician, ethical Plus he's interested in the seat.

Lets be honest, the last thing the GOP want is a Kennedy running for office in 2010. They do not stand a chance. The aim is to make her seem so incompetent that nobody willl vote for her.

Caroline Kennedy senator? Sure, she'll never get reelected, but it'll look nice on her resume in case if the crisis gets out of hand she ever has to go and look for work. The United States is getting to be more and more like a Walt Disney film about a banana republic.

I'll use MJ's column for my Christmas/Chanukah Message;

64 years ago today, as a member of the 82nd Airborne, I was in a foxhole along the Salm river in Vielsalm, Belgium. This was the Battle of the Bulge and were protecting a bridge across the Salm River. That night and on into Christmas morning was by far the coldest time of my life. Till this day, when trouble rears its head, whateverkind, I say to my wife; "At least I'm not in Vielsalm."

Today I'm an old man reflecting on my life. In my time I saw the good the bad and the ugly, but today I'm here at this keyboard in a nice toasty warm house. My immediate family is all healthy and doing well, and for that I am thankful.

I'm not much for praying, but I will say a few short words in my mind in support of the downtrodden.

"I expect to pass through this world but once: if therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." Edward, Earl of Devon

Time passes swiftly, so take a minute to reflect on your life, and remember those less fortunate.

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah

John

Thanks, M.J. As far as I'm concerned this whole "experience" mantra is a shopping cart full of crap and a complete red herring. Caroline Kennedy will do just fine, just like our good Senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone, did just fine. I must disagree with one thing you said, however:

"Governor Nelson Rockefeller, a Republican, appointed a fellow Republican to the seat. No one complained because that was the law even though New Yorkers had elected a Democrat to the seat four years earlier."

I'll bet somebody complained...

Cheers, Happy Holidays and thanks for another dose of your clear-eyed sanity.

There is nothing hypocritical in opposing Caroline for her lack of experience. This pure nepotism and there is a long tradition in America that resists this practice.

N.Y. Gov Paterson comes off pretty smart and shrewd so the shoe-in for our Princess Caroline may not necessarily happen after all.

One positive outcome.... the Senate appointment will save us from having to hear the political bull sh*t of these politicians for at least a year....

MJ, I'm sorry to see you take this position, because I very much admire much of your writing in TPM. Obviously, the fact that Caroline K. hasn't been elected is a red herring. But where has she been during these 8 years of Bush/Cheney? I didn't see her actively opposing them or even taking any public stands against them. And what about her views? I assume that she's anti-war and pro-choice and all that good stuff, but do we really know? I'd much prefer that the Guv appoint someone whose views we know and (largely) agree with, and preferably someone who participated in the struggle against tyranny.

MJ wrote:
-------------------------------------------
PS I supported Barack Obama for President starting in 2006, when he had only two years of Senate experience. I supported him over Clinton, Biden, Dodd, and the rest who had over a hundred years experience between them. In the end, Obama won the biggest Democratic victory since 1964.

Experience counts. In medicine. In the courtroom. In the classroom. Not on Capitol Hill.

--------------------------------------------

You think you have proven everybody wrong? Obama hasn't even taken office, and you think he has already shown that he is a great President. Sorry, but getting elected and functioning in office are two separate things. Bush won two elections. Does that prove he was a great President in your eyes? He was so smart he even managed to take office while getting fewer popular votes than his rival in 2000.
What I see here is a bad case of secular messianism. MJ is constantly looking for a hero to make everything right with the world. For MJ, Obama has already made peace in the Middle East just by the very fact he was elected, according to MJ and now with Caroline, who has the genes of another of MJ's hero, we have reached paradise. I still don't understand why MJ wants Caroline to be Senator, other than for the "magic" she supposedly inherited from her father (whose legacy was mixed, at best).

But they don't whine about Schwarzenegger.

In my eighth-grade Social Studies class in 1960, I got the got the job of debating the case for Democrat John F. Kennedy against Republican Richard Nixon for President of the United States. Kennedy won, but Nixon got back at me ten years later when he ordered me to Southeast Asia where I languished for eighteen months in the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-72) laboring vainly to Vietnamize the Vietnamese. My point?

Take it from me, fellow Crimestoppers: the Republicans hate losing to no one more than they hate losing to a Kennedy Democrat. Republicans understand and worship monarchy, but only when it involves and serves Republican celebrity/royalty. Right now, though, Caroline Kennedy strikes fear and loathing into not only Republicans, but the Clinton Partners in Pathos, too (pardon the redundancy). It should take no imagination to see that after eight years of experience in the Senate (two more than current New York Senator You-Know-Her had when she ran for President) and after eight successful years by the first African American president -- not incidentally a Democrat -- that the American people will have no problem at all electing the first woman President -- not incidentally a Democrat -- as long as that woman has a celebrity/royal name, at least nominally respectable "experience" in government, and hasn't passed the cut-off age of 60.

Do I have to draw a picture here for the learning impaired?

Not that I give a shit what Republicans or any politician named Clinton thinks (for I've seen more than enough of both), but I'll never forget the day in my high school French II class when the teacher informed us with a quavering voice and ashen/stricken face that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas. Days later, I watched on live television the national funeral of our President with the image of his two little children burned into my memory for the rest of my life. On that awful day, America took those fatherless Kennedy kids into the protective shelter of the country's heart and neither of them ever afterwards acted in any manner such as would bring embarassment or regret to any of us.

This doesn't mean that New York or America owes Caroline Kennedy anything. But if anyone thinks that this shy and admirable fifty-one-year-old woman does not resonate powerfully within the very history of America, then it will do me no good to predict that if she lives to serve in the Senate until the retirement of President Barack Obama in 2016, then she will have the 45th Presidency of the United States if she desires it. And nobody understands and fears this profound truth more than Republicans and the Clinton Partners in Pathos (again, pardon the redundancy.)

Before his untimely death, Caroline Kenndy's father challenged America to land a man on the moon and bring him safely back to earth again; "not because it's easy, but because it's hard." Nine years later, and six years after Lee Harvy Oswald took him from us, America did what JFK had promised we as a nation would do -- out of America's love for, and trust in, the man who asked us to do the impossible because he believed we could. Caroline Kenney saw some of that same hunger, hope, and trust in Barack Obama. She saw it before many -- even some in her own family -- saw it. Then she went out to work so as to help make history happen. She ought to know how. And if another President Kennedy should ask America eight years from now to land a man on Mars and bring him safely back to earth in less than a decade, then America will do that too. And we will do it, "not because it is easy," and not even "because it's hard;" but because she asked us to do it, and promised us that we could.

Some people just have what it takes to make history. Barack Obama has it. And Caroline Kennedy has it, too. So, say goodbye to the White House for at least the next sixteen years, Republicans. You've more than earned your coming decades in the wilderness. Do try to get lost.

For those terminal adolescents who don't understand the age-span of the so-called "Baby Boomer" generation, I can only say that New York Senator You-Know-Her and Deputy Dubya Bush belong to that peer cohort while Caroline Kennedy (New York's next junior Senator) doesn't. Caroline Kennedy's father, of course, didn't belong to our generation, either. I'd explain more about recent and impending American history, but I've already taught enough high school to last the rest of my remaining life.

MJ -- I wish you'd be a little more generous to New Yorkers like me who oppose a Kennedy nomination. I don't think there's anything hypocritical about it at all.

There really is a difference between Clinton and Kennedy -- an election. Heck, two of them! A public vetting, as it were. It's important. The other, as has been pointed out is that Clinton had a clear interest in politics, and a career, before she became first lady.

Also, the governor going the appointing here is himself an appointee. While this is not as bad as Rockefeller replacing Bobby Kennedy with a Republican, I think it is indeed bad. You say people weren't outraged by Rockefeller's appointing a Republican. But does it follow that they shouldn't have been? Maybe New York's laws are the problem here.

Political dynasties are troubling but if they're the result of elections, I can deal with them. But if it's the result of an unelected governor appointing a socialite to be my senator just because of her name, then I'm right to be outraged, I think. And don't take the word socialite as a pejorative. It's just an apt description of a woman in her 50s who has avoided both politics and a career in favor of serving on boards and living off family money. Yes, she's suffered tragedies but we all have and most of us still have to go to work to pay the bills. This appointment is frank evidence of a dangerous class divide in American society and I would expect that progressives would care about that.

We've been hearing a lot lately abot the undemocratic nature of governors filling congressional vacancies. And it is clear that the practice may tend toward cronyism, corruption, and political advantage. And, it is clearly less democratic than holding special elections (which, themselves, often tend toward cronyism, corruptin, and political advantage....). But the system does make it possible for a wise, exceptional executive to select someone from outside the normal political process, who may not have very good campaign skills and yet may provide valuable and unique perspectives--someone perhaps from academe or journalism or business or science or the arts or the workplace.
Let us hope that the next senators from New York and Illinois honor the nation and their appointers.

The problem is not that Caroline has no relative experience or ability. The problem, and what makes me uncomfortable, is that the only reason she is being considered is because of her lineage. This isn't something that only disturbs me with Caroline Kennedy. It bothers me that the well connected are quite often at the head of the line regardless of their qualifications, etc... As I've said previously on this site, she'll probably make a very good Senator. Nonetheless, it would be far preferable for her to win election instead of being appointed/elevated by what seems almost divine right. I do not think anyone should criticize her personally or be vituperative and angry toward her. Anyone would do what she is doing under the same circumstances. She didn't ask or have any choice in being born Caroline Kennedy after all. That doesn't mean that those, like me, who are uncomfortable with the apparently very undemocratic means by which she might enter the Senate don't have a valid point. If she becomes Senator, she will have to do even more to prove she deserves it when election time comes round in two years.

Ultimately, the important thing to remember is that the longer this pot boils the worse it will be for everyone in the Democratic Party. Gov. Paterson could put a stop to all the negativity if he would simply indicated sooner, rather than later, who he plans to appoint instead of allowing the cat and mouse game to continue where lots of things will be said that shouldn't be.