(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Caroline Kennedy may be the successor to the Senate seat recently vacated in New York. I don’t know why Caroline, but I don’t know why not. If anyone has had political theory pushed at her since childhood, Caroline has. She is one in a family of public servants. Caroline herself has been involved with public interests in New York for many year as chief executive for the Office of Strategic Partnerships for the New York City Department of Education, and according to Wiki:
Kennedy is currently President of the Kennedy Library Foundation, a director of both the Commission on Presidential Debates and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Honorary Chairman of the American Ballet Theatre. She is also an adviser to the Harvard Institute of Politics, a living memorial to her father.
But for some reason, perhaps because I suspect she is considered because of her relationship to a political dynasty that is losing its head, I am suspicious of the choice.
More rant beyond the fold:
You can number me among those who think that Muntadar al-Zaidi, an Iraqi reporter, was heroic in his display of disrespect for our lame duck, Bush, by throwing his shoes, the most extreme form of disrespect in his culture this side of violence. It was impressive how nimbly Bush dodged the bullet. Then Bush made a joke about the incident, and it has become a joke all around.
But this is a serious business to Muntadar al-Zaidi whose life was changed by Bush’s war far more than the throwing of a pair of shoes could express. This Bush man has been the leader of our country for eight years, and he’s caused a lot of grief in that time. Recent ravings reveal that he has been a little tired of the game of late. Further, it’s suggested that he holds the political process in disdain. This explains the sneer. After all, Bush is a rich man who knows the power of wealth. He stands secure in his new, revalued home in Texas while others who considered themselves his base go down. And stupid, greedy, near-evil wins.
The last eight years have changed our country horribly. Even now, with a Democratic president just a few weeks away who inspires such hope for salvation from this wreck of the ship of state, the public money is being spent on bailing out the profiteers among us and leaving the working folk for the neighbors to bail out. We the people have allowed this, but we the people have not been thinking. Greed is a factor. We thought we were getting opportunities from the government and Wall Street to better our circumstances at little cost to us. We are children who failed to learn along the way to delight in reason and rationality.
How can we learn to be reasonable and rational unless we can afford to attend an Ivy League school or unless we are driven by that closest-thing-to-genious that we can know? Our education system has been starved and driven to serve the economy with its soul. Students are dollars, and teachers are encouraged to retain students and pass the ones along who haven’t earned the grade. Fewer graduates can reason or care to, even to find the truth. (Truth isn’t comfortable anyway, so truth can’t be happiness. And all the political and economic talk talk is confusing, you don’t know what to believe. It’s so much easier to listen to the sets of talking points in the T.V. and make a decision that’s based on some preconceived idea that holds your world maze together.)
And, on top of all this, Caroline Kennedy is throwing her hat into the ring, and who’s to say that she shouldn’t? New Yorkers, I suppose, and I wonder how they feel about the choice. Senator of New York is not an entry-level position into a political life.
I feel like throwing shoes. And what will happen to Muntadar al-Zaidi? The shoe incident is not funny to him, and he faces some unforeseeable amount of time in an Iraqi jail. Many people in Iraq demonstrated their support of his actions which they called heroic, and there is social upheaval where there is too much upheaval already to bring under control. We may have heard the last of Muntadar al-Zaidi, but he has not seen the end, and I hope it’s not the end of him.
For decency’s sake, Bush should counsel his Iraqi hosts to leave Muntadar al-Zaidi’s political action unpunished: protest is acceptable in Bush country, and, hey, no harm, no foul. It wouldn’t make up for the last eight years, but he could use some good deeds in his book of life.
And Caroline, how about mayor of New York?
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… about Caroline Kennedy. I was very angry with her when she was on the Commission for Presidental Debates and when New Orleans was not chosen, she was completely unresponsive to those who asked why.
She is also very much a political insider who is using the same political consulting team used by Schumer and our dear friend, Joe Lieberman.
I also like many things about her. She wrote a great book (co-authored with Ellen Alderman) on the Bill of Rights. She’s no dummy.
As a New Yorker, I can’t say this choice would thrill me. She is very much part of the Washington insider scene. Thus the mixed feelings, yet I wouldn’t protest her selection either.
I have heard no one speak my thoughts on the subject yet.
Perhaps, this is the first time there has been a Political climate that she, as a liberal, felt she had a snowballs chance in hell of making a difference.
Perhaps, since her uncle is sick, she also knew there was less of a chance people would bemoan the “too many Kennedy’s” in power, and felt it was time to step up in his place. (for he is probably not long for office)
Perhaps, she feels emboldened by the moderating swing of this country and wants to push it further left.
She has as much experience, if not more, than Hillary did when she ran.
And, she is a REAL LIBERAL unlike Clinton.
Thats why people oppose her.
Makes me crazy.
is working itself into quite the inter-party battle. I must say that I think Jane Hamsher is doing her cause no good with this kind of remark.
That’s what we get from the woman who is perhaps the pre-eminent female liberal blogger???? I say it stinks!!
The one person in all of this who’s brought up an argument that I haven’t heard elsewhere, but it very intriguing to me is Al Giodano at The Field.
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