Being a co-chair of a candidate's search committee is not the same as being a senator.

Hillary Clinton got the Democratic nomination for the NY senate seat because her husband was Bill Clinton, but... she had some experience in politics besides being Lady Bountiful. She earned her place at Wellesley, it wasn't a legacy which got her in. She was the first student allowed to give a commencement address at Wellesley. She got into law school on merit. She worked on child abuse cases at Yale New Haven Hospital, she volunteered free legal services to the poor. She won a grant to study at a Washington research project, she worked for Walter Mondale on a labor committee. She worked for the Children's Defense Fund as a lawyer, she worked on an inquiry to the House Judiciary committee during the Watergate scandal. She was appointed by Jimmy Carter to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation. She taught in law school, she practiced law.

Caroline Kennedy went to law school but has never practiced law. She made a tv show about the Bill of Rights, wherein she admitted she had not known that the Bill of Rights was the first ten amendments to the constitution. This is what happens when people get to skip the hard parts because they are related to rich, powerful people. They get to graduate from law school without knowing what the Bill of Rights is, whereas the rest of us have to learn it in the fifth grade.

Even when Caroline fundraises, she doesn't do it based on her own talent and instinct. She does it based on her last name. It's not her fault. She knows no other way of life. She doesn't mind being appointed senator based on her last name, but she has never evidenced any kind of interest in the position when it entailed having to campaign for it. Caroline Kennedy "campaigns" from a stage and a telephone, not at a factory, or in an upstate town where people have lost jobs. She expects to be appointed senator because people simply do what she wants them to do based on her name.

There is no way that people who have worked for the Democratic Party out in the trenches, shaking hands, listening to voters' concerns, learning the names of people of influence in their communities, working to pass laws and to get fair funding to their constituents should be shunted aside because Kennedy wants to be appointed to the United States Senate. Though politics is rife with insiderism and nepotism, at least the children of powerful people have run for their offices. Kennedy is not willing to do even that, otherwise she would have run for office before age 51. The office of NY senator should not be a ceremonial office. There are New York Democrats who know state and national politics far better than Caroline Kennedy, and they've worked their asses off. Let one of them have it.

(BTW, if her brother were alive and wanted the office, I'd say yes. John Kennedy Jr lived a public life in all ways. Anyone who lived in downtown or midtown Manhattan saw him walking around or biking around when he studied, lived and worked there. He lived like any other young New York guy, only he had more in his bank account than the rest of us did. He was out there with the masses. He worked as an assistant DA. He knew his way around. He biked or took the subway to work and he was friendly, humble and an all-around good guy who wasn't afraid of the public. He did not occupy the same rarefied space as Caroline Kennedy. If he had, he'd probably still be alive today saying "What ho fellows, I'll take that senate whatayamacallit thing there as long as I don't have to work for it.")

I think maybe my letter makes it seem that I am one of those crazy Hillary Clinton supporters who dislike Caroline Kennedy because she supported Obama. Not true. I wanted Obama for president and am happy that he won. But I respect Hillary Clinton's political accomplishments. She had a career before she married Bill Clinton and maintained while she was First Lady of Arkansas. I don't like her personality - too phony for me - and I don't like her coziness with corporations, but she has earned her stuff in a way that other recipients of nepotism (George W Bush, George "Macaca" Allen, Mary Bono come to mind) haven't.

I don't recall lots of bleating about Caroline Kennedy's qualifications to act as co-chair of Obama's Vice Presidential Search Committee.

-- RichEmery

You're comparing a two-week job for one person to representing 20 million New Yorkers for at least two years -- and none of the 20 million New Yorkers had a say in this appointment.

No, I didn't "bleat" about Kennedy being a co-chair. I'm bleating now.

What a brilliant analogy. No wonder princes and princesses keep getting elected to office.

Shalom,

ZWrite

It's fun watching some posters here doing cartwheels explaining why H. Clinton was more qualified to be one of New York's senators in 2000 than Caroline Kennedy is now. Quite fun.

The first poster nailed it: Kennedy would be one of the more progressive members of the Senate--likely far more progressive than Hillary herself--and has not only a chance to win re-election in 2010 but also a chance to hold the seat for many, many years to come.

I'm sure all the life-time members in the New York State back-room political club are outraged that years and years of kissing up to obscure state senators and local fundraisers and whatnot aren't going to get them that shot at the senate seat they dreamed of. I feel their pain.

Political dynasties are no fun, whether the family name is Bush, Clinton, Sununu or whatever. But in addition to the practical issues outlined above [and after all, this is the Democratic Party, not the local Green Party or Socialist Workers Party; everything that happens in it is about the triumph of pragmatism over idealism] I'm also willing to grant a partial exception to the Kennedys. However thuggish and disappointing they always seem to be, they're the one dynasty that also seems quintessentially American. Them and the Bhuttos. Hee hee.