Careers Open To Talent, and $70 Million

There’s a conspiracy afoot to make me care about the fact that Caroline Kennedy wants to be appointed to Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat. It’s not working. I do not now, nor have I ever, nor will I ever, give two stinking shits about it.

Let’s see. The wife of a former president gets kicked upstairs to head the State Department. Her probable replacement in the Senate is, miracle upon miracles, the daughter of another former president. And guess what? Her uncle once held that same Senate seat. Golly, what a whacky world! Had her brother not been killed in a plane crash, he’d probably be sitting in that spot right now, worming his way up the greasy pole to the presidency, sparing Ms. Kennedy the unfortunate duty of becoming a Washington politician. But fate decreed otherwise. Now the humble, retiring Ms. Kennedy must relinquish the quiet joys of private life and bravely devote herself to public affairs, like George Washington or Cincinnatus. She never wanted this. It just sort of happened, like a one night stand. One almost weeps over the irony of it all.

Of course, there are other considerations to take into account. According to Tuesday’s New York Times, NY Governor David Paterson, whose job it is to make the appointment, has come to see Ms. Kennedy as a strong potential candidate “whose personal connections would allow her to raise the roughly $70 million required to hold the seat in coming years.”

So she can scrape up a cool 70 million, eh? I think I smell a statesman, er, woman.

Take note, Mr. Blagojevich. If you’re going to hock a Senate seat, learn do it right, man! You used the hard sell when soft persuasion was in order. You had bad manners, bad hair, bad brains and the wrong pedigree. All you needed was a little proper breeding, young ruffian. Oh well, to Hell go the stupid. If life was fair, we’d all be a millionaire, and history would remember our names. Tough luck, Rod. You had bad style.

Perhaps I should be less cynical. Perhaps I should recall the commencement address spoken at my college graduation. It was very inspiring. Here’s a snippet of what the speaker had to say:

“If you think the system is broken, fix it; if you think it is dirty, clean it up,” she said, eliciting cheers from the audience of 20,000 spectators at the school's 97th commencement.

“Fight for your democracy by participating in it,” she said. “If you don’t, there won’t be a real democracy left to fight for.”

Who was the speaker?

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Bobby’s daughter, Jack and Teddy’s neice; Caroline’s cousin.

Viva la Democracia!