THE PLANK JANUARY 24, 2009
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In next week's issue of The New Yorker, Larissa MacFarquhar has a Caroline Kennedy profile that was probably intended to give readers a glimpse at New York's newest senator. Things took a different turn, of course, but the result is a piece that is more entertaining than it otherwise would have been. Most astonishing, for example, is this quote from MSNBC political analyst and Caroline loyalist Lawrence O'Donnell:
“Paterson has no comprehension of upstate New York, absolutely none,
and has chosen someone better at representing cows than people. What you have is the daughter of a lobbyist,
instead of the daughter of a former President or the son of a former
governor. This is the hack world producing the hack result that the
hacks are happy with.”[Italics Mine]
Let that second sentence sink in for a moment. It also seems from MacFarquhar's reporting that Kennedy's other friends are just as charming as O'Donnell. They love to drone on and on about how normal Kennedy is, but Macfarquhar nevertheless sums up their attitidue as follows:
As the weeks went by, people who were not her friends questioned
whether she had the fluency or the toughness to fight for the Senate
seat, as she’d have to in 2010. Could she handle the hot dogs and the
fried dough? Was she ready for Utica? This sort of questioning drove
the friends insane. It was so irrelevant. After all, she didn’t
have to campaign in the same way that an unknown person has to. People
already knew who she was, she already had their attention. They even
already knew more or less what she stood for: she was a Kennedy—she’d
been born with a platform.
How dare people question her campaigning abilities: Caroline is a Kennedy. At this point I was eagerly awaiting a quote from another friend lauding Kennedy's courage. And I was not to be disappointed:
To Caroline Kennedy’s friends, her putting herself forward for the
Senate, whatever the result, was a step of great courage and
significance. “This is a person who has the blessing of using her
remarkable position to advance larger issues,” Richard Plepler says,
“and, because she has never taken advantage of that, that is something
that speaks to the integrity and, not to be too corny, but, the
nobility of what she’s doing now.” “To put yourself through that seems
like a lot for her, but I take my hat off to her, because changing your
life up and trying things at—you know, she’s not twenty-five—takes a
certain amount of guts,” a friend says. “She’s not stupid, she knew
that the life she knew would come to an end whether she got the
appointment or not, and that’s a tough thing for anyone, giving away
the life you’ve had.”
Yet she dropped out of the running! To paraphrase P.G. Wodehouse, this is no way for noblesse to oblige.
--Isaac Chotiner
10 comments
Honestly, what is the obsession with trashing this woman? It's so juvenile. She is not a Senator now, and that was probably the best call for all concerned. Even so, everything I've read suggests she is a decent person who had been touched by tragedy in a way few of us can imagine. So let's just let her be.
I really don't know who all the sources close to my governor who keep trashing her are but it's really making everyone look pretty small.
- Jill Pinot Noir
January 24, 2009 at 6:46pm
Jill, amen to that. The New (York) Republic continues its obsession, meanwhile nary a single posting about the new Senators from Colorado or Delaware. I wonder how much longer TNR will obsess about this?
- blackton
January 24, 2009 at 7:34pm
I am saddened by the way Ms. Kennedy has been savaged over superficial issues blown out of all proportion. Please reread her NY Times OpEd endorsing Barack Obama. It is eloquent, perceptive, decent and very well written (and it was timely). Already, when she took that stand, she gave up the private life she had lived until that time. She did it because she thought it was important and events have proven her right. We need more people with that kind of judgement, decency and integrity in public life and her withdrawal is a loss for the country.
- jzyskind
January 24, 2009 at 11:12pm
Now that the woman has backed out of an embarrassing situation with new humiliation stacked on her at the end, I think it's time for a little compassion.
She has probably now discovered that her whim of being a senator was ill considered and that she is not cut out for politics. Certainly not at that level.
Whatever her privileges as a Kennedy, she has paid very dearly for them in the loss of a father and then of the uncle who assumed a 2nd father role. She has lost her brother to a violent death as well.
If only out of respect for the memory and the spirit of her mother and father, we ought now let Caroline return without further comment from media and public to private life.
I am sure she has sufficient intellect, and other personal qualities that will let her serve well in other ways. Whatever her family might believe, I'm not too convinced that politics is such a high calling anyway. At least as usually practiced.
- ChanRobt
January 25, 2009 at 1:05pm
A New Yorker write-up about Caroline Kennedy, I'm going to read that article right after I put down my Sherry, and finish my game of backgammon and the discussion of Witkenstein I'm having.
- gflibCDL
January 26, 2009 at 12:24am
No courage? You have no idea why she dropped out, anyone who acts like they do is an arrogant fool.
This a a shameful conclusion on a petty, irrelvant piece. Cultivate some class. Leave her alone.
- Wandreycer1
January 26, 2009 at 6:57am
Jill,
Unfortunately, I think I can answer your question ...First Kennedy's harshest critics had no reason to be against her or for anyone else in the first place since appointing person A is no more democratic than appointing person B.
Please recall that the basis of their objections wasn't that Kennedy would make a bad Senator but rather that appointing her would be less democratic than appointing someone else [no that doesn't make sense which is my point].
Second, well, it's pretty obvious that because of the mess they've helped to make both Gillibrand will draw serious primary challengers and serious Republican opponents. Which is to say that by the end of 2010 California, Illinois and New York could be in Republican hands. Issac's obviously feeling a bit sick about that realization just now and inclined to justify his actions with this little display of classlessness.
- arsonplus
January 26, 2009 at 10:02am
www.nydailynews.com/.../gillibrands-latino-problem.html
- arsonplus
January 26, 2009 at 10:24am
correction that should have read ... "both Gillibrand and Patterson will draw ..."
- arsonplus
January 26, 2009 at 10:59am
Well argued arson, I'll agree with many of your points.
But I did interpret the last sentence as a dig at choosing to drop out, which anyone has the right to do (except if you're the wrong social class I guess), but with the added dig of her supposed *lack of courage* for not running.
I hope I am wrong. Because if not, isn't that a bridge too far in to the classless realm? I'm all for well placed vulgarity, but mean and arrogant too? As if the whole personal reasons thing was a ruse? How would anyone know that?
It all reminds me of the mean girls in my high school a zillion years ago. They always went after the shy rich girls too. It says nothing about Caroline.
- Wandreycer1
January 26, 2009 at 11:35am