privilege

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jan 19, 2009

 Oh, never mind the US Senate. Why not move straight to immediate canonization? That's the net effect-- quite obviously the desired effect, anyway-- of a front-page story in the New York Times about the aspirations of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg. As an example of out-of-control, over-the-top, objectivity-be-damned journalism, you'll have trouble matching this fawning tribute.

Now, however, Ms. Kennedy, having offered herself as a candidate to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton as New York’s junior senator, stands poised to surrender her zealously guarded privacy and genteel civic involvement to dive headlong into the mosh pit of New York politics.

She has offered herself. She is surrendering her cherished privacy. Such a spirit of sacrifice! The entire world will benefit, needless to say, if Caroline becomes the latest in a line of Senators Kennedy. That's implicit; no need to explain. 

The Times catches us to the would-be Senator as she arrives at an award ceremony. During campaign season, every aspiring office-seeker seeks out just such public events, as opportunities to gain a bit more publicity. But in this case, the coverage is light. "There were no television cameras in Mott Haven that day," the Times reports. That's too bad. The candidate's advance-publicity team didn't get the desired coverage. 

But wait; the New York Times was there, and that's nothing to sniff at. There are other people who would like to be appointed as the next US Senator from New York. We don't know what they were doing that day; they didn't get front-page coverage. Come to think of it, we can't even remember the names of those other Senate aspirants. But we can remember the name Kennedy, and that's why the name Schlossberg has disappeared from public view.

Raised to tend her family legacy but not to trade on it, ...

[sorry about that cough]

... Ms. Kennedy has struggled to make the case that she is motivated by the Kennedy ethic of public service and not by any sense of entitlement.

So there's the Kennedy ethic on one hand, the sense of entitlement on the other. Sorry; I don't see the difference.