On Caroline Kennedy's political aspirations, Charles Krauthammer makes an unoriginal but important point.
The problem is Kennedy's sense of entitlement. Given her rather modest achievements, she is trading entirely on pedigree.I hate to be a good government scold, but wasn't the American experiment a rather firm renunciation of government by pedigree?
Yes, the Founders were not democrats. They believed in aristocracy. But their idea was government by natural -- not inherited -- aristocracy, an aristocracy of "virtue and talents," as Jefferson put it.
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No lords or ladies here. If Princess Caroline wants a seat in the Senate, let her do it by election. There's one in 2010. To do it now by appointment on the basis of bloodline is an offense to the most minimal republicanism. Every state in the union is entitled to representation in the Senate. Camelot is not a state.
In the real world, Anne Bayefsky has a chilling piece in Ha'aretz this week about the travesty that is to be Durban II and the mounting pressure to get the Obama administration to give it a go. This will be an interesting test. My bet is that he capitulates. My bet is that he wants to capitulate. And not due to the outside pressure so much as due to the pressure of his own ego telling him he can "fix" it, make it better, bring everyone together in a global group hug. I hope I'm wrong. Please let me be wrong.
Shabbat Shalom.
