Althouse: Caroline's real reason.

January 22, 2009

Caroline's real reason.

How can royalty have such a mundane failing?

Meanwhile, Ted didn't like being portrayed as semi-dead.

55 comments:

vbspurs said...: I just saw this linked on Drudge (via Henry Buck).

Housekeeper problems and taxes have done in more women seeking office or the bench, than women or booze have prevented men from the same. I don't think this is so much to do with her arrogance as a Kennedy, than as an educated, urban woman with career ambition.

However, if her papers were not in order, why did she think she could get away with getting the post in the first place?

Maybe people are right, and I am giving her too much benefit of the doubt because I have a sweet spot for her dad.

Maybe she is a rather cossetted and regal. Oh well. I doubt that she will run for elective office again. But I suspect her daughter, Rose, will.

Cheers,
Victoria; 1/22/09, 3:31 PM
tim maguire said...: That Times article is remarkably sloppy; it reads like something they'd write about John McCain. But one thing is clear--the folks in the Times' press room don't like her.; 1/22/09, 3:35 PM
traditionalguy said...: When will they ever learn? Servant abusers don't fit well into the Dem. image. They need to stick to bundling contributions and leave the Face Time to vetted functionaries. Of course the FICA taxes etc. they were saving was not really wrong, just like when everbody goes 80 mph in the 55 mph speed zone but only you get the ticket. Welcome to ordinary peoples' life Caroline.; 1/22/09, 3:59 PM
Ron said...: Someday a Senate vote will lack cloture due to conflicting playdates.; 1/22/09, 4:01 PM
Anonymous said...: Obviously the NYT article is nonsense. In this post-Geithner era, no Democrat needs to worry about having not paid taxes properly (or even about committing tax fraud, apparently) or having employed an illegal for whom no taxes/to whom no benefits were paid.

No, no, I think it's really quite simple. Caroline is using those things as an excuse to get out of this whole Senator thing. I don't think she ever wanted this in the first place; more likely was bullied/guilted into it by her Uncle who would consider it her dynastic duty to fill the "Kennedy" spot in the Senate. After all, the other Kennedys in government are established eff-ups and his own wife (to whom he plans to bequeath his OWN seat) uses her own name. Caroline was his only hope....

I think Caroline is relieved to have a reason to tell Uncle, sorry but no.... She's most likely very relieved indeed not to have to submit to public scrutiny (scorn, derision, etc). And now she can go back to her comfortable, easy, socialite life of languid fund-raising, "writing" books and enjoying the company of Pinch Sulzberger without (she hopes) massive media attention.

I've always felt sorry for the Kennedys; the ones who aren't complete A-holes or criminals, anyway.; 1/22/09, 4:03 PM
Patm said...: I thought the Kennedys and their ilk were all about the little people and you know, loving American law and stuff.; 1/22/09, 4:04 PM
Daryl said...: What a pathetic joke. Zero experience, unless you count pushing kids out of a vagina as "experience."

She claims to have experience as a working mother--except she never actually worked and she had illegal nannies to care for her children.

She said she would work twice as hard as everyone else, because of her big name--and then said that she wouldn't run for the seat if she wasn't appointed to it first.

Like, YOU KNOW. YOU KNOW. YOU KNOW. I don't know--YOU KNOW, you know?

Bye-bye Caroline.

Bye-bye Ted.

We don't need any dynasties in American politics. We don't need the rotting corpse of Ted Kennedy packing the Senate with new Kennedies in order to perpetuate Bootlegger Joe's bloodline.

We don't need that giant frog* handing out favors to politicians that will appoint his completely unqualified, un-American** family members into office.

* Frogs are amphibious, ugly, round, and would probably drink a bottle of scotch in one sitting if they had the opportunity.

** Anyone who thinks she's a princess, and is over 18, is un-American. Maybe we can buy her a glittery pinwheel to cheer her up. From Tiffany's, with real diamonds, I mean.

Exit question: would you blow Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger for a Senate seat? I might. I mean, it is the U.S. Senate, after all.; 1/22/09, 4:06 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/22/09, 4:06 PM
SteveR said...: Damn Henry, this was light fun and now you planted that creepy thought.; 1/22/09, 4:14 PM
traditionalguy said...: Daryl... that was a pretty harsh comment about sweet Caroline. I take it you are not a Baby Boomer.We still love her like family, even if we know everything you say about her is probably true.; 1/22/09, 4:15 PM
traditionalguy said...: My Sweet Caroline moment reminds me of a good high school teacher's reaction to some harsh, but probably true, critcism of FDR in her class. She had gone thru the Great Depression and WW2 and felt like she had suffered thru along with FDR. She could not listen to her "friend's" being trashed and emotionally lost it and cried. Is that what the Presidential cult of personality comes from?; 1/22/09, 4:25 PM
ricpic said...: She had a Quatemalian in the basement? So what? Doesn't everybody?; 1/22/09, 4:47 PM
The Dude said...: I have a hunch you meant "Quasimodian".; 1/22/09, 5:07 PM
ricpic said...: That also works.; 1/22/09, 5:07 PM
Steven said...: Rather unflattering picture of Kennedy in the article. I wonder what motivated the choice of that one.; 1/22/09, 5:17 PM
Laura(southernxyl) said...: "A Democrat operative with ties to Mr. Paterson said the governor told Ms. Kennedy last week that she was the choice, but that he would use the next few days to do 'a little misdirection to keep the suspense up.'"

I feel like when I was twelve years old, at my grandparents' house on Thanksgiving, viewing the kids' table with a jaundiced eye, and saying, "I want to be with the grownups."

But now I begin to suspect that there aren't any.; 1/22/09, 5:19 PM
LonewackoDotCom said...: Considering Teddy's forty-year crusade to allow massive immigration to the U.S. by any means necessary, and considering the NYT's strong support for illegal activity, it's a bit surprising they aren't rushing to her defense.; 1/22/09, 5:35 PM
John Burgess said...: I'll be damned if I can find a 'real reason' in that article. I do find a lot of unsubstantiated reasoning, a juicy rumor or two, but a 'real reason'? Please point to it for the dim among us.

I'm a boomber, but I also have personal knowledge of the Kennedy clan. I'm not enamored.; 1/22/09, 5:37 PM
David said...: NYT describes Gov. Paterson as "unpredictable."

To them, maybe.

Sane and normal might be a better description.; 1/22/09, 5:39 PM
William said...: She heard that Tina Fey was tightening up her impression of her.; 1/22/09, 6:00 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: Ted didn't like being portrayed as semi-dead.

It would take a hell of a lot of makeup and/or Photoshop to portray him any other way.; 1/22/09, 6:14 PM
John Stodder said...: Oh well. I doubt that she will run for elective office again.

If there is a next time, it'll be her first time.

I'm so amazed how many of my liberal, politically connected friends are disappointed that Caroline won't be in the senate. I'm not talking about 14-year-old girls. I'm talking about 45-year-old men who, metaphorically speaking, hide at least a couple of shivs and wear steel-toed boots. They went gooey at the thought of JFK's heir picking up "the torch." Even after it was obvious she had no skills, they wanted it to happen. They still want it to happen. It ain't over til it's over, right? They're thinking out loud -- Teddy's on his last legs, maybe she can move to MA, and...

The Kennedy clan, however, must be livid at what a joke she turned out to be. The brand used to be: Idealistic, sacrificing, steadfastly liberal, the epitome of public service, glamorous, smart, tough-minded, inspiring. Caroline has shone a light on another side to all of that: Entitled, spoiled, lazy, uninspiring, half-baked, out of touch, dumb, dishonest.; 1/22/09, 6:41 PM
traditionalguy said...: My memory of JFK was that he was not very good at Presdidenting at first, but he kept connecting with us with his humor. Then, he was a real war hero, like Michael Corleone in Godfather Story was, and his family life seemed to us to be real be real. Of course no one knew just how much he relied on his father's shady connections. We do remember the day in Dallas, and little Caroline and we bonded with the widow and the children. We were not very sophisticated, I guess, but we loved them and it's still there.Today Jack kennedy would be a Harvard educated Zell Miller, if that makes you feel better about his politics.; 1/22/09, 7:03 PM
vbspurs said...: Sometimes you read something from your colleagues that make you squirm. You don't want even the remotest chance of their views being confused with yours, or that by your silence you somehow accept their tone.

So having said that, I'd like to distance myself from what Daryl wrote about Caroline Kennedy.

That was disgusting.; 1/22/09, 7:13 PM
Michael Haz said...: I'll be damned if I can find a 'real reason' in that article. I do find a lot of unsubstantiated reasoning, a juicy rumor or two, but a 'real reason'?

An extramarital affair, hers or her husband's, I'd bet.

Nominees have survived tax issues and nanny issues. Making an affair public, however, would devastate her reputation as a Princess.

The NYT article was quite vague, perhaps purposefully so. It was a shot across her bow.; 1/22/09, 7:15 PM
Meade said...: "Idealistic, sacrificing, steadfastly liberal, the epitome of public service, glamorous, smart, tough-minded, inspiring"

That would be the Fitzgerald brand, John.

"Entitled, spoiled, lazy, uninspiring, half-baked, out of touch, dumb, dishonest."

There you go... now you've got the Kennedy brand.; 1/22/09, 7:19 PM
Palladian said...: No more Bushes, no more Clintons, no more Kennedys, no more Bidens. I'm royally sick of dynastic nonsense. This is America. We don't need that "Camelot" bullshit. I used to assume that the many years that have passed since the Revolution had bred all the residual European fondness for monarchies and dynastic rule out of the American gene pool. But I suppose that some things are more deeply embedded in the human nature than I'd assumed.; 1/22/09, 7:28 PM
Big Mike said...: Nothing in the article that isn't vague supposition.

But I'm glad to see her go. No one who says "you know" as much as she does knows anything worth knowing.; 1/22/09, 7:30 PM
TheDopeFromHope said...: Apparently, the Pinch was donging her. Let's see if the NYT reports on that!; 1/22/09, 7:41 PM
Anonymous said...: Pardon the following O/T effusion.
Laura(southernxyl): As a longtime Althouse lurker/commenter, I didn't remember seeing your name before in these precincts, so I checked out your blog. It is one of the finest, most insightful and intelligent personal blogs I've run across. Your post for MLK day was especially wonderful. Excellent work. Please keep it up.; 1/22/09, 7:46 PM
David said...: Michael: "An extramarital affair, hers or her husband's, I'd bet."

No, no, a thousand times no. Affairs are nothing in this crowd--it's assumed, part of the natural order. Plus who gives a rat's ass if she had an affair.

This could be why the NY crowd found Bush 43 so boring. Same woman for over thirty years, and a slightly zaftig schoolteacher at that. Just proves how stupid he is.; 1/22/09, 8:04 PM
joewxman said...: looks like a surprise pick for the ny senate seat...an upstater!

http://www.wpix.com/print_landing?blockID=193155&feedID=1404; 1/22/09, 8:11 PM
vbspurs said...: No more Bushes, no more Clintons, no more Kennedys, no more Bidens. I'm royally sick of dynastic nonsense. This is America. We don't need that "Camelot" bullshit.

I understand the American desire to be rid of aristocracy, but I find this unappealing and wrong, at some primordial level.

So folks are gonna tell me that if _I_ had been born to a famous political family, I would've been disqualified no matter how many good qualities (some not readily apparent at first) I personally had?

Just the thought of being so doctrinaire depresses me.; 1/22/09, 8:16 PM
dick said...: May be doctrinaire but what good qualities for the position does she bring? I haven't seen any.

Very good friend who worked for one of the Rockefellers for 17 years as personal asst/private secretary. She told me that when she called for dinner invitations she had to call 2 households. Caroline claimed 2 employees but had several part time non tax paying help. Her interpretation is that this was common knowledge to another potential candidate for the office and was held close until it came time to use the knowledge. Combination of marriage not working, tax problems and illegal immigrants as nannies for a woman should be enough to scuttle the nomination.; 1/22/09, 8:30 PM
Laura(southernxyl) said...: (Thanks, Theo!); 1/22/09, 8:40 PM
Wince said...: Ted didn't like being portrayed as semi-dead.

Speaking of semi-dead Kennedys and "bonking" illiterate Nazis.; 1/22/09, 8:41 PM
vbspurs said...: Combination of marriage not working, tax problems and illegal immigrants as nannies for a woman should be enough to scuttle the nomination.

Yes, I agree. But the animosity to Caroline personally has been eye-opening to me. There is something, I don't know, resentful about it that has nothing really to do with her personally.

I think if she had been the best speaker in the world, had worked herself to the bone, and had generally been more outgoing, I still think people wouldn't have liked it simply because her birth name is Kennedy.

And this isn't a Kennedy thing. I don't think the Saltonstalls, the Adamses or the Roosevelts are much in evidence today either.

Americans have always tottered between appreciating their version of the upper crust, and hating their guts.

Never having hated anyone for their origins, I personally do not understand this.; 1/22/09, 8:45 PM
Cedarford said...: vbspurs -

I think the revulsion is simple math. If hereditary entitlement allows far less qualified to vault over the more qualified, it is more likely that you end up with failures and successes. That was the pattern in European monarchy, the pattern of incompetent privilege of rank the Founders hated so.

What sucked with Hillary and Beau Biden and Dubya was that niggling feeling we lost out on a chance of a better leader because they used their names to shut down better competition at critical stages of their advancement.

I think Europe demonstrates though, that blue bloods can, and do, have the opportunity to make it on their own merits in front of Euro voters that give them no credit for being the 17th Baroness of Der Pfalz or the 9th Earl of Sussex.

And more often than not, our most consequential leaders (FDR excepted) have been from modest, even humble beginnings. Along the way, those brilliant souls may have had some of their rough edges smoothed by proper breeding and rearing - but then they wouldn't have been George Washington, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, Abe Lincoln, Henry Ford, Harry Truman, LBJ, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton..all with rough edges but with true ability and tested in the fire...

The worst is just the appointment to Title or office with no pretense at competition, no going through the voters or shareholders...More than a few of us have seen such nepotic losers, and worse knowing that they want to exist in the Elites primarily accumulate enough undue wealth and power to enable them to pass on nepotic favors to the next generation of nepotic losers they sire.; 1/22/09, 9:00 PM
vbspurs said...: It's being reported that Paterson is about to name Congresswoman Kathleen Gillibrand to Clinton's Senate seat.

Except for the Village Voice's article asking "Is Gillibrand too Republican to replace Clinton?", I don't know who she is.

Since Gillibrand doesn't sound Italian, I have very little hope that Trooper will give me the low-down either.; 1/22/09, 9:02 PM
vbspurs said...: Err, Kirsten not Kathleen. (PIMF); 1/22/09, 9:03 PM
Steven said...: Anyway, we all know Hillary Clinton's successor must be Laura Bush.

(Well, okay, Nancy Reagan is equally qualified, but at age 87 she probably won't make it until Michelle Obama is available.); 1/22/09, 9:06 PM
Cedarford said...: Wow! Just heard that Dave Paterson just appointed a high potential non-NYC New Yorker.

An Upstater! Paterson is going with Congresswoman Kirsten Gillebrand, a Centrist, pro-gun Democrat. Which means that the 5 most powerful positions in New York (Senators, Gov, Mayor of NYC, Speaker) will not be "All Manhattan" (Schumer was born in Brooklyn and aspirant Cuomo in Queens - both chose later to live in Manhattan to be with "the important people".)

Gillebrand is from a family of accomplished Republicans, but who went Democrat herself. Very smart, very good looking and very knowledgable about NY problems outside Manhatan.; 1/22/09, 9:14 PM
Chet said...: But Gillibrand's child is younger than Trig. How ever will she manage to care for an 8-month old and be Senator at the same time ?

I hope the same questions that were asked of Palin's child care plans, are asked of Gillibrand.; 1/22/09, 9:19 PM
Chet said...: Gillibrand needs to stay home and take care of her 8-month-old.; 1/22/09, 9:20 PM
MayBee said...: It would be pretty cheeky for Patterson, of all people, to disqualify Caroline because she'd had an affair.
Unless, of course, the affair is with the person it's rumored to be.

As for the revulsion to Caroline getting the Senate seat, it isn't just that she's a Kennedy. It's that she used her Kennedy-ness to campaign for Obama, and then Obama tried to get her a Senate seat.; 1/22/09, 9:21 PM
Palladian said...: "It's being reported that Paterson is about to name Congresswoman [Kirsten] Gillibrand to Clinton's Senate seat."

Wow, so the people of New York State will actually get someone from New York State but not from New York City to represent them in the Senate? Cool. And she's not a celebrity or a "princess" and she makes the Village Voice unhappy? Even better.; 1/22/09, 9:22 PM
Palladian said...: "Gillibrand needs to stay home and take care of her 8-month-old."

Are we even sure it's actually her baby?

OK, enough. It's just not funny. I wouldn't want this woman to get harassed the way Palin was. No one deserves that.; 1/22/09, 9:24 PM
Swifty Quick said...: We just went through this in Illinois, remember? Senate appointees don't go through the confirmation process like presidential cabinet nominees.
The governor just appoints them, bang-->zoom. That's all there is to that. It's later on down the road when they stand for reelection that their opponent digs up whatever dirt there is out there to be found to slime them with. That's the way that plays out. The point is nobody ever would've known or had to know about the nanny, or the taxes, or the affairs, or the marriage on the rocks. That's standard issue stuff in today's Democrat Party. What looks like happened here is Patterson resented being cornered into appointing her when he really didn't want to, so he had his people go find dirt on her to confront her with and to get her out of the running. Patterson kneecapped her. In effect.; 1/22/09, 10:58 PM
vbspurs said...: No one deserves that.

Caroline didn't deserve that either. I was asked on my blog how someone like me can back her, considering she is a Democrat and helped Obama to skewer my beloved Governor Palin.

And I think I'm still working on that answer.; 1/22/09, 11:07 PM
Anonymous said...: Perhaps Caroline is as dull as she seems? Perhaps Pinch is hoping for a bailout from the Kennedy millions?

I would like Tom Wolfe to write a roman a clef about this whole affair, now!; 1/23/09, 12:24 AM
rhhardin said...: It's amazing there are so many sex scandals with only two sexes.; 1/23/09, 5:41 AM
Anonymous said...: couple things

1. illegal household staff>>> been there. as the illegal not paying taxes or soc security in Germany and here. I did have my green card, though, so I guess it wasn't all that bad. It's not just urban woman with career ambition doing the employing. I worked in housekeeping, dressmaking, and nannying. None of the employers fit too well in the urban women with career ambition demographic. As a note, i was employed in landscaping which could have been the same deal with under the table payment , but it wasn't The employer was a very religious protestant Christian in word and deed, which I think was why everything was on the up and up. (Fear of doing wrong) They did do marvelous service.

2. wow, I hope Obama's girls don't have the same fate at being ripped apart in midlife. Nations falling in love with little girls seems to turn out bad for them later in life whether in politics, theatrics, or sports.

maybe to turn the mood, you all ought to talk about Shirley Temple.; 1/23/09, 7:28 AM
paul a'barge said...: According to rumors floated on Bill O'Reilly she (Caroline Kennedy) was boinking some guy named Sulzberger from the NY Times. Both of them are married.; 1/23/09, 8:55 AM
rhhardin said...: C.L.Sulzberger NYT radio ad in Jean Shepherd long ago, to give a flavor of the family. (real audio)

Shep has a nice analysis of the tone. You can see it would fit a Kennedy female.; 1/23/09, 12:10 PM
Joe said...: I go with the "this was just an excuse" reason.

Caroline is quite obviously an introvert. Like most smart introverts when the opportunity arose, she figured she could do a good job. Then came the realities of political life which is murderously hard on introverts. We'd rather shove hot needles in our eyes that do all that meet-and-greet stuff.; 1/23/09, 12:25 PM