We had so much fun and adulation and glamour and downright jealousy that brief Camelot moment when the JFKs graced the White House.
Tragically, only one out of those four lives today.
I am all in favor of Caroline’s staying out of range, to arrest the morbid curse that plagues the Kennedys.
Instead, with the news that her children pushed her into supporting Obama, Caroline emerged in her middle-aged radiance, with a grown-up voice and some amount of personality, to support Barack along with her Uncle Ted. It was touching even when I supported Edwards during the primary season, until he dropped out and someone lifted the curtains on his other self, alas. Human, all too human, aren’t we all?
Now Barack has been elected; I don’t know how much of that victory is attributable to Caroline’s support, but yesterday she announced officially her interest in stepping into Hillary Clinton’s shoes when Hill takes her oath of SoS.
S.O.S.!
We have been aware of Caroline’s interest for about a month. She granted an interview to an obscure local TV station yesterday and is not anxious for more. She has addressed crowds and taken Al Sharpton to lunch. I assume she paid. He looked dumbfounded in all photography taken of the two.
A debutante and a leftist minister, the former of whom could probably rebalance the entire economy with her bank account, one of them, which she isn’t too anxious to exhibit to the famished-for-celebrity public.
But the real parallel is between her and Barack: two years in the Senate and whoosh! Up like an astronaut! Maybe. A friend joked about the Kennedy-Palin race in 2012.
Which makes me wonder whether her children really pushed her into the charmed public eye. Oh, that wardrobe. Oh, the jewelry. Subdued, but oh. Perfect hair, done only once a day. Does she?
For her own good, I wish she’d vanish behind that perfectly manicured row of high hedges and winding blacktop that led to some sort of mansion the public never saw. Become again that glamorous hidden enigma hoarding privacy. Príh-vih-see?
Is there a congressional district for the Upper East Side that might be more appropriate?
One doesn’t go from mowing the lawn to leading a suburban corporation in one step, does one, whatever the last name, however much volunteer work and wealth donated to Nyew Yahk?
Enough. Don’t mean to roast too long. She is, after all, a liberal, a Kennedy liberal, and that’s better than most alternatives. But we all got impatient with the Poli Sci 101 that Bush flunked so miserably. We don’t need an apprentice senator from Nyew Yahk, do we?
I loved the parodies of the Kennedys such as Mad magazine’s: 1) [JFK to Jackie:] “Deah, Caroline just made a funny. She said that when the Republicans die they go to the elephants’ burial ground.”
2) Mad's H.M.S. Pinafore parody in the title above.
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