by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n Caroline Kennedy\u2019s Moment \u2014 A Sad Reflection of Our Times<\/strong><\/p>\n The probable appointment of Caroline Kennedy, the 51-year-old daughter of former President John Kennedy, to fill Secretary-of-State nominee Hillary Clinton\u2019s New York Senate seat is both laughable and yet a parable for our bankrupt times.<\/p>\n Consider aristocratic entitlement. Ms. Kennedy apparently spends a great deal of her time divided between her Park Avenue Upper-East-Side Manhattan townhouse and her hereditary estate on Martha\u2019s Vineyard. She has had no real experience with the ordinary lives of New Yorkers, either a few dozen blocks away in Harlem (despite a sudden ad hoc lunch last week with the Rev. Sharpton at a soul food diner) or the state\u2019s rural towns to the north.<\/p>\n Ms. Kennedy is about as undiverse as one could imagine. She was educated at exclusively private schools among those of her like race and class. Her financial security is due to either inheritance or marriage; there is no evidence of a self-employed stellar legal or business career. But there is plenty of evidence that Ms. Kennedy reflects the current Democratic Party\u2019s obsession with celebrity and Hollywood-like imagery \u2014 as we see from the recent politicking of everyone from Oprah to Sean Penn, the Senate run of comedian Al Franken, and the messianic cult that surrounds Barack Obama, from hisvero possumus<\/em>\u00a0Latin seal to his mass rallies with Greek temple backdrops.<\/p>\n Press reports suggest that the current political junkie Ms. Kennedy was an erratic voter in the past. In any case, her positions on both state and national issues are perhaps doctrinaire liberal in the Kenndyesque sense. But we can only assume, rather than know, that, since she has not in the past voiced any strong views about anything in any detail. Unlike dozens of veteran, hard-working and savvy New York state and federal office-holders in the Democratic Party, who would be both qualified and happy to serve out Sen. Clinton\u2019s term, Ms. Kennedy has never run for, or held, public office. Her only prerequisites for Senator are her pedigree from her father and her purported celebrity mystique passed on from her mother Jackie. She certainly has shown none of Hillary Clinton\u2019s grittiness, traipsing over the rural haunts of America in a bright blue pantsuit, quaffing boilermakers at biker bars and reinventing herself as a sort of Annie Oakley everywoman, clinging to guns and religion.<\/p>\n In 2007 Ms. Kennedy was, in fact, a strong Hillary Clinton donor and supporter, but jumped ship and joined Obama once he surged in the polls at the beginning of the year, when the national media and the fossilized icons of the Democratic Party underwent some sort of ecstatic catharsis and mass hysteria akin to what Euripides\u2019s Bacchants experienced on Mt. Kithairon.<\/p>\n That savvy metamorphosis into an Obamiac explains Ms. Kennedy\u2019s sudden me-too piggy-backing into national politics. Indeed, her current newfound political zeal seems predicated on the larger Obamania craze, a sort of brand name groupthink in which romantic liberals imagine a return of JFK\u2019s lost Camelot.<\/p>\n \u00a92008 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Caroline Kennedy\u2019s Moment \u2014 A Sad Reflection of Our Times The probable appointment of Caroline Kennedy, the 51-year-old daughter of former President John Kennedy, to fill Secretary-of-State nominee Hillary Clinton\u2019s New York Senate seat is both laughable and yet a parable for our bankrupt times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[736],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-P1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3034,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-media-morality-tale\/","url_meta":{"origin":3163,"position":0},"title":"A Media Morality Tale","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner The putative Caroline Kennedy candidacy for senator has had the odd effect of reopening the media can of worms treatment of Gov. Palin. Compared to Sarah Palin's almost immediate immersion into crowds and public speaking, Kennedy seems like a deer in the headlights before\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "January 2009"","block_context":{"text":"January 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/january-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2323,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/senator-high-and-mighty\/","url_meta":{"origin":3163,"position":1},"title":"‘Senator High and Mighty’","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Forbes Magazine By now almost everyone has weighed in on the legacy of Sen. Ted Kennedy, who passed away this week after a year-long struggle with a cancerous brain tumor. Liberals eulogized that Kennedy's legislative legacy is unquestioned and has now transcended partisan bickering. In their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "August 2009"","block_context":{"text":"August 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/august-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3161,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/for-the-people\/","url_meta":{"origin":3163,"position":2},"title":"For the People?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner [Editor\u2019s Note: These\u00a0Corners\u00a0together show democratic ethics, laws, and oversight seem irrelevant to those who \u201cdid it all for the people.\u201d At the same time, tribalism and aristocratic privilege and paternalism seem on the rise.] Where is the Ethics Czar? They're rioting in Athens. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2008"","block_context":{"text":"December 2008","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2008\/december-2008\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13647,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/victor-davis-hanson-talks-about-gwen-berry-kennedy-looks-at-the-pippen-jackson-feud\/","url_meta":{"origin":3163,"position":3},"title":"Victor Davis Hanson Talks About Gwen Berry & Kennedy Looks At The Pippen\/Jackson Feud","author":"Victor Davis Hanson","date":"June 29, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/victor-davis-hanson-talks-about-gwen-berry-kennedy-looks-at-the-pippen-jackson-feud\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7086,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/mr-farrow-and-the-obama-syndrome\/","url_meta":{"origin":3163,"position":4},"title":"Mr. Farrow and the Obama Syndrome","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 6, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 Young, charismatic, good-looking, hip, and glib are all superficial traits that supposedly cerebral liberal elites have a bad habit of believing trump experience, knowledge, humility, and what the Greeks called\u00a0pathei mathos, learning through requisite pain. Once someone is acclaimed as a liberal prodigy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12996,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/diplomatic-lessons\/","url_meta":{"origin":3163,"position":5},"title":"Diplomatic Lessons?","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 21, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Private Papers PX 96-33:12 03 June 1961 President Kennedy meets with Chairman Khrushchev at the U. S. Embassy residence, Vienna. U. S. Dept. of State photograph in the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, Boston. WikiCommons A forty-something inexperienced JFK in June 1961 was clobbered at the Vienna\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/John_Kennedy_Nikita_Khrushchev_1961.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/John_Kennedy_Nikita_Khrushchev_1961.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/John_Kennedy_Nikita_Khrushchev_1961.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/John_Kennedy_Nikita_Khrushchev_1961.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3164,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163\/revisions\/3164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}