Not a politician

Well, it looks like Caroline Kennedy is withdrawing her Senate bid, which is as it should be. Senators should not be elected based on who they are descended from. And if something like her uncle having medical problems is truly keeping her from taking the position, then perhaps she never truly had what it took to be a US Senator.

Of course, neither I nor anyone else believes for a second that Kennedy is really withdrawing because of concerns about her uncle. What really happened is that she had the idea that she could saunter into that seat at any time and--by virtue of the Divine Right of Kennedys--everyone would be just tickled about it. And maybe if this were 1972, she would be right. But it's not 1972--it's 2009. And people, by and large, don't give a shit about the Kennedys any more (or, at least, not enough of a shit to just elect any old person who has the last name "Kennedy").

Let me reiterate that I don't necessarily have anything against Caroline Kennedy's politics or the person herself. If she really wants to be a Senator, than I say more power to her: let her run when the Senate seat comes up for reelection. But to appoint someone who is already a scion of the most powerful political family in the United States is an insult to the very notion of a meritocratic democracy.

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.

Divine Right of Kennedys

Caroline Kennedy--who has never run for public office, has led a life largely in seclusion from the public eye, and who basically is a nobody with a not-nobody family--has decided that she will deign to be appointed Senator for the state of New York as Hillary Clinton's replacement.

I have no idea what kind of Senator Caroline Kennedy would be. But the idea of this person having such a sense of entitlement that she seriously thinks she deserves to be appointed to a seat in the Senate because the blood of the Kennedys flows through her veins is just too much. If Caroline Kennedy wants to start a career in politics, that's just fine--but she'll have to do it the old-fashioned way: by making a name for herself, and winning an election.