Competence chic

The more people I talk to, the more of a consensus there seems to be about this Caroline Kennedy business--namely, that she is not qualified for the Senate and appointing her would be flagrantly nepotistic. This is my view as well, but I also think that Kennedy is choosing a particularly bad moment for this sort of thing, because we are just now ending the reign of cronyism and incompetence of someone who rose to power through sheer nepotism, and the country is hungry for a change to meritocracy in Washington DC. Merit, in other words, is "in"--which is unfortunate for children of Presidents looking for careers in politics.