Caroline Kennedy’s maladroit Senate bid has finally ground to a halt with the anticipated noontime appointment of Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to Secretary Clinton’s coveted seat. The choice added insult to injury for the Camolites: not only isn’t it Caroline, it’s almost the anti-Caroline. Albany guru Fred Dicker describes how Governor Paterson defies the liberal wing of his Democratic Party by choosing a little-known NRA-backed upstate Congresswoman rather than any of the many other contenders with solid liberal bona fides. Perhaps the most pertinent fact is that, liberal schmiberal, Rep. Gillibrand is a Friend of Hillary.
In a performance reminiscent of another New Yorker —Nelson Rockefeller in 1968— Ms. Kennedy hinted and feinted and kept the ante upped by always showing just enough leg to stay atop the headlines and upstage everybody else.
But the main problem was that she never overcame her disastrous rollout. Her campaigning remained stiff, reluctant, and highly regimented. For all the high powered PR advice she paid for, no one squelched the rumors that started bubbling up —about unpaid taxes, nanny issues, and marital problems— so they soon spread from the blogosphere to the mainstream. Tucker Carlson tries to figure it out on today’s Daily Beast.
Now, according to the latest stories, after having been informed that she wasn’t going to be chosen, she told the Governor that she no longer wanted to be considered.
Howie Carr, the Boston radio fixture, columnist, and Kennedy/Kerry scourge, has been unsympathetic from the getgo to Ms. Kennedy’s Senate aspiration. In today’s Herald, he pulls out the few remaining stops in his analysis of one of the rumored reasons for Ms. Kennedy’s retreat:
Another liberal icon caught allegedly not paying taxes. First Charlie Rangel, then Tim Geithner, now the Valley Girl of Camelot. Do as they say, not as they do. I guess they didn’t get the memo from Joe Biden – the vice president lectures us all how “patriotic” it is to pay taxes, Caroline.
I wonder if the New York times will write an editorial defending this latest liberal tax cheat, the way they did for Tim “What do you mean you can’t write off your kid’s overnight summer camp?” Geithner.
These starstruck Obama groupies want to tax you back to the Stone Age. It’s for the children, and for the infrastructure. The next statue they put up in Washington should be of the woman who really inspires the tax-cheating moonbats – Leona Helmsley.
If there is any justice in this world, next spring New York Gov. David Paterson will be in Cambridge picking up one of those phony-baloney Profiles in Courage Awards. The award copy writes itself: “Whereas, Gov. Paterson had the stones to turn down the blandishments of all Beautiful People Everywhere to appoint this spoiled little rich girl to her uncle’s old seat.”
Hypocrisy, thy name is Caroline. How’s that old song go? She’s a rich girl, and she’s gone too far, ’cause she knows it don’t matter anyway. She can rely on the old man’s money.
So, adieu sweet Caroline. You were my choice; for all the good that did. You went too far; but, in the end, it really didn’t matter anyway.