Caroline in the Senate

All the signs seem to be pointing to Mr Magoo –- uhh, I mean, NY Governor David Paterson – leaning toward Caroline Kennedy for Hillary Clinton’s vacated Senate seat. A bunch of sources are reporting it, so it’s probably true. I am going to take a firm stand here and say I oppose this appointment. Does that mean I think she won’t make a good senator? No, it’s nothing against her. Beside the fact that this whole business of governors appointing senators just plain stinks –- need I take up space with the Illinois governor's Slavic surname here? -- Caroline simply doesn’t deserve to be appointed. No one should inherit a seat, no matter how well her family is regarded or how cute she was as a kid. If she wants to be a senator, she should make her case to voters and run in the next election. In making her case so far, she’s been getting hammered in the press for, you know, ummm... what I mean is... her, you know... Palin-esque performance in interviews. And rightly so. If you enter the fray, be prepared to take an elbow-smack to the eye socket. This is politics, not a gingerbread bake-off. (I'm assuming gingerbread bake-offs are relatively tame affairs. If anybody knows different, post a comment.)

On this subject, Susan Dominus has a Times piece from yesterday, with what she calls a ‘thought experiment.’ The problem is that it has nothing to do with thought. She posits that JFK, Jr, if alive today, would have been ‘embraced’ by Democrats, because it would seem as if his taking the office were ‘the natural order of things’ -- unlike poor little Caroline, who’s been raked over the coals because she lacks the requisite type of reproductive organ. Excuse me, Susan, but don’t use the shrill cry of SEXISM in this cowardly way, hiding behind rhetorical stunts like hypothetical scenarios and experiments in un-thought. John-John took a lot of hits for failing bar exams and running around with celebrities. If you're going to assume something, assume that the hits would have come much harder and faster if he had ever asked to be appointed to a Senate seat after having flailed about like a flipperless seal in media interviews. You’re a journalist, Susan, so act like one. When you have an opinion, state it, support it, and take the heat when that opinion sounds like it came from a cocaine-sniffing monkey.