Some recent comments about Caroline Kennedy, a potential replacement for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton:
“The job does involve a certain amount of preparation, of knowledge of how to legislate, and stuff like that. She is going to have to learn a great deal. She has got great advantages. She has good political genes. She has good political instincts”
–Mort Kondracke, executive editor of Roll Call, on Fox News Special Report.
“Her Kennedy genes prepare her for the task, just as surely as her Bouvier genes do not.”
–Margaret Carlson’s column, December 18.
“When you look at her, and you know what the Kennedy’s are capable of and you know the family she comes from . . . think of the DNA.”
–former New York City mayor Ed Koch.
“Her experience is in her bloodline. If her brother John-John were still alive there is no question he would get the seat.”
–Koch, again.
“But now, Caroline wants to reclaim her birthright. What is that, you ask? Can you really be asking? I mean, doesn’t every Kennedy have, as a part of his DNA, the desire to enter politics?”
–Christine M. Flowers, Philadelphia Daily News.
The arguments in favor of Caroline Kennedy began as superstitious ghost stories about pleasing unseen departed spirits; now we’ve moved from nepotism to genetic determinism.