Caroline Kennedy: All Entitled, All the Time

I'd wanted to meet Caroline Kennedy -- or, really, not meet her necessarily, but just to be in her presence, to sit across the table from her and look at her. It wasn't a good reason to do a story, but no one was asking and it looked legit: it was 1991, I was the law columnist for The New York Times, and Kennedy had just co-written a book entitled In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action. Why shouldn't I write about her?

Well, there was a good reason, actually. The interview was conditional: I could talk to her alright, but only, her publicists warned me sternly, if I asked no "personal" questions. We Times reporters never accepted interviews under such circumstances. Besides, it was outrageous, chutzpahdich in the worst way. Kennedy's book was news only because of her famous name. It's how she was able to get luminaries like Bill Moyers, Barbara Jordan and Laurence Tribe to blurb it. Moreover, most people peddling books would have died to have had anything about them in the Times. Yet here was an author handcuffing a reporter before he even walked into the room, and getting away with it!

I was star-struck, I guess. After all, I'd grown up with Caroline Kennedy. I'd loved her father, the first president I ever really knew. When she stood alongside her black-veiled mother and brother at his funeral, I was only a few years older than she. So I went along wimpily. The interview was predictably pedestrian; neither Kennedy nor her co-author, Ellen Alderman, had anything remotely memorable or interesting to say. With one exception. One moment in that interview, in fact, has always stuck with me, and I've thought of it often these past few weeks as Kennedy pursues a seat in the United States Senate.

Perhaps because no reporter likes to be restricted, perhaps to live a bit dangerously, perhaps because I thought it might enliven what promised to be a dull column, I ventured brazenly into forbidden territory. In the course of her research, I asked Kennedy, had she bumped up against the legacy of her father and her Uncle Robert, who presided over the White House and the Justice Department at a time of constitutional tumult? Anything in her book touch on them?

It was hardly a "personal" question. It wasn't about her husband or children, nor about her mother or brother. It was germane and respectful and, to most fair-minded people, would not have seemed in the slightest bit offensive. Even so, Kennedy got her back up, enough for me to drop the usual decorum and to note it at the time. "The line of questions had what a famous First Amendment case not discussed in In Our Defense called a "chilling effect" on the proceedings," I wrote. "Such subjects, Ms. Kennedy cautioned, entered the forbidden realm of the 'somewhat personal.'" She did venture a short answer. "A lot of the things that they did, I'm very proud of, but we didn't run into them very much at all," she told me. "It was a pretty long time ago.'"

It wasn't much, but it was the most usable quote I got that day. The only one, in fact. Had I any guts, I would have canned the column, as a protest to this sort of authorial arrogance. But ideas were hard to come by and I'd already invested something in this one and my deadline was approaching. So I just wrote my piece. Like everyone else, I had succumbed to Kennedy's name, was shilling for her book, and giving her a pass, which in its infinitesimal way would only have made her more the way she was, and still is -- a way which, it is becoming increasingly clear, is likely to doom her candidacy.

The other day, Nicholas Confessore and David Halbfinger of the Times sat down with Kennedy, and encountered a more pointed version of what I'd observed seventeen years ago. Times reporters -- as opposed to Times columnists -- aren't supposed to show their feelings. But sometimes, they can't, or don't want to, resist. With a couple of well-timed jabs -- describing how Kennedy grew testy at one of their questions, then refused to answer another when the interview was ostensibly over -- they let the world know how thin-skinned and petulant and entitled she is. And their editors let them do it.

Good for them all, I say. I should only have been so gutsy.

Comments

[RuthlessDictator]

I'd like to see SNL do a skit on Caroline (if they haven't done it already) but they probably wouldn't touch that for fear of offending the Kennedys.

[1Marie23]

There is trouble in Camelot, for we can hardly find the Caroline articles on Huffington today, so she is clearly bombing. She will not get the seat.

[middleoftheroad]

Who cares if she is a Kennedy. This is the worst sort of the elite keeping it in the family. It's a joke to our system. There are plenty of Dems who have worked hard in public service (no, Kennedy really hasn't, she had hardly voted for Dems in the state), who would do good for NY. Do you even know if she can take a punch? It is politics. Can she fight for NY and bring projects etc to the state? It's American Royalty TAKING (not winning) what they think should be theirs.

[richardrad]

Caroline Kennedy may be a smart, well intentioned person. But as blogger radiclib points out, she does not deserve to be appointed to the US Senate. Just because she is famous and charming with a perfect political pedigree, it does not mean that she has the qualifications or passion for the job. It does not mean that she will be the strongest Democrat to face a re-election campaign in 2010.

We are emerging from a time when fame and wealth have been hugely over-valued. Barack Obama has done a reasonably good job picking his cabinet, largely because he has chosen people who know are qualified. Nearly all of his nominees are experts in their fields.

The US Senate includes too many multi millionaires with questionable political resumes. Ms. Kennedy should seek election to the House first. She should be more open and specific about where she stands. From the start, Hillary Clinton rolled up her sleeves, campaigned and served with passion. I may be wrong, but so far there is little indication to date that Caroline Kennedy will do the same.

[RightsAtty]

I'd put my money on her any day in a Senate race against any GOP candidate in New York. Those of us who watched her roll up her sleeves and campiagn with passion for our new President know that she will serve with passion and elegence and class.

[glorialovelace]

In every state where Caroline Kennedy campaigned for Barack Obama during the primaries, he lost.

[oceanlover]

It would help considerab­ly/immeasu­rably if Caroline were as eloquent as her privileged background and education should/would suggest. Say as eloquent as... Obama? (Now that would be something, no?) Or is that asking too much of her? Clearly, she is no where near as eloquent nor polished when her speech is peppered with, "you know" and "um" in literally every sentence. Did you read the recent articles with verbatim quotes? It's simply astonishing and downright embarrassing. Perhaps this is why she is so reluctant to respond to reporters questions. What is so striking, is that as a public official, she should be more than willing to entertain most any questions posed, and when she herself, (not her handlers,) does not want to answer a question, she should have the where with all, to answer graciously and firmly as to why it's not an appropriate question. It's a dangerous line she's treading when she feels she's above answering a few simple questions. Her behavior smacks of all things "privileged," and is most disconcert­ing/unappe­aling.

[RightsAtty]

Sorry, she IS entitled. She gave up her father and her uncle, a second father, for this country. It's columnists like you who are petulant. The public is more than willing to cut Caroline Kennedy a lot of slack - she deserves it and has earned it. You haven't.

[meko]

My dad died in Viet Nam. He was serving his country too. Where's my senate seat?

[RightsAtty]

Get some public support and respect and maybe people would want you to represent them.

[1will]

She's earned nothing and if it were not for her famous name and fortune she would no doubt be laboring as a mediocre divorce lawyer.

[glorialovelace]

She didn't "give up" her father and her uncle, and she's not entitled to anything beyond a condolence card. If she is appointed, it will be a travesty that betrays the entire idea behind representing the people. If she is appointed, it will be because of her checkbook -- and for no other reason.

[annis]

Sorry - but it seems to this reader that you are being petulant. When you read the level of the comments from the media and the intrusiveness of the observations and the entitlement issues of the media -
I think Ms. Kennedy is right to be testy at the very least. Would you want your life to be under the scrutiny and held to be "in the public domain"? I think not. Put yourself in her place.

[meko]

Everyone who's been under consideration for the senate appointment has been under public scrutiny for far longer than Caroline Kennedy. It's part of the job. Carolyn Maloney has been under public scrutiny for the past 25 years and has managed more grace under pressure.

This snarkyness is just one of the things we can look forward too if this intensely private person dives into public life after spending a lifetime in hiding. Grace is easy to manage when you're sheltered. It's when you're under pressure that it's impressive.

[glorialovelace]

Having one's life placed under scrutiny is part of the process of being vetted as a politician. People who don't like being examined should remain private citizens.

[Happyexpat]

David, David---Happy New Year! Get in touch. Elena from Woodstock, now in Bologna, Italy. And BTW, sorry you had an unhappy experience with Ms. Kennedy, but must say in her defense she has had a life, despite many advantages, that neither you nor I would ever have wanted. She grew up having her privacy invaded on every level imaginable. It doesn't take much of an imaginative leap to understand why she might be hypersensitive. Perhaps not the best of quirks fro someone seeking public office, though, that being said ,I find the vitriol being expressed regarding her bid for the senate seat somewhat over the top and am at a loss to say what actually motivates it. But do get in touch through Leslie H. Ciao for now. E

[meko]

A lot of people who volunteer for campaigns, get out to vote in every election and have donated more to Democratic campaigns than she did in the 10 years before she support Obama (less than $1000) find it offensive that the pipeline of people who've worked and served, who we've supported, are being overlooked for the sake of supporting fame, inexperience, and inherited wealth.

To some people accomplishments mean more than vague position pronouncements.

[glorialovelace]

What motivates at least some of the "vitriol" is the appearance that New York's Senate seat might be sold to the highest bidder and that the talented and proved legislators who are waiting in the wings to take over Clinton's senate seat will be pushed aside for a rich, society girl.

[ClarkJensen]

Caroline Kennedy seems part of a growing trend in US politics towards candidates who cannot/do not articulate coherent ideas and who display little or no intellectual curiosity or passion. In some ways Caroline has been compared to Sarah Palin, but at least Sarah Palin and Joe the Plummer - or even George W. Bush - demonstrated some passion about their ideas. Caroline Kennedy has demonstrated little or no passion that anyone can detect, and we are left trying to "explain" Caroline Kennedy by cobbling together the few sketchy details of her cloistered past.
When she curtly cuts off questions and retreats from reporters to her car, some of us read in shyness, others see arrogance or emotional scarring from family tragedy.
If Caroline Kennedy is somehow appointed to the Senate it will be a disturbing sign about the growing power of legacy politics in the United States.

[brooklyncitizen]

This post is a bit over the top especially if you describe the parody of Bush's Presidency and the female version to follow in the form of Sarah Palin, as passion. They are propagandists and too dim to possess any original ideas which is a prerequisite for passion.

One can say ,I guess, that Palin was "passionate" about shopping and clothes; and George is passionate about having power as the Decider since he was driven by a puerile competition to out do Dad.

Though I don't support Caroline as our replacement senator, her contribution to the Obama campaign was significant and passionate.

[ESerafina42]

Agreed. If Palin had given the same interview to the Times that Kennedy did, Democrats would have been all over her.

[shamanbart]

The Entertainment section of most newspapers and news sites (HuffPo included) contains much more about the private foibles and events of entertainment celebrities than about actual entertainment news or reviews. Is that what the author of this article wants to turn politics into -- the scuttlebutt of the personal lives of politicians, rather than their views on policy, law and public events?

I come down on the side of Kennedy and agree with focusing political articles or literary reviews on the topic at hand, rather than juicing them up with fluff about their personal lives. It's not a question of entitlement, but one of propriety.

[glorialovelace]

Ironically, the only thing Caroline has to offer is her "personal life", since she has no professional experience for us to scrutinize. She is paying the price for trying to pole-vault on the hype that comprises the Kennedy legacy.

[Geekboy]

It's up to Paterson to decide. He's wisely been silent on the topic :) Whoever he appoints will have two years to prove their capability then face the public over their record. I can't get as worked up about this as it seems many others are.

[JamesRiddle]

I like Kennedy, as much as anyone can like someone they don't really know. I like her positions on issues, as I like the opinions of many other who hold similar views. But how are we get over the gnawing feeling that she is a lightweight if she doesn't forcefully state her political philosophy? How are we to judge her mettle when she seems frightened of the spotlight, the press, reasonable questions or anything that probes beneath mere appearances?. Is it arrogance, a sense of entitlement, social anxiety, an innate shyness, that makes her appear wierd? Being born with a famous last name is not an accomplshment. Suffering the assasination of your father and uncle does not entitle you to a scrutiny free pass. The question I feel needs to be asked is has this person been living in a bubble? To think you could be appointed to a Senate seat and not have to answer tons of questions, from every angle, sure seems to me the mentality of someone who feels entitled. It's up to her now, to either throw herselfout there lock ,stock and barrel, or drop out. There are no free rides no matter what last name pure chance has awarded you with.

[redwoodcitizen]

spot on, J.R.

[picard922]

This author is on the right track - entitled people get away with it because we have made it so by caving in.

[radiclib]

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As much as many of us would want Caroline Kennedy to be a U.S. Senator and to be a good one, too, we have to ask ourselves: Is this the best thing for the progressive cause, the Democratic Party, the state of New York, the country and for her?

She seems to lack many key skills. To serve in the Senate, you have to answer questions from citizens and media, some of them nosey, some of them impolite, some of them trivial and unfair. You have to be nimble with your words and thoughts.

She seems smart and she certainly is famous and wealthy. But this not the House of Lords (or Ladies). She lacks street cred. Perhaps, she could be nominated for the rest of Sen. Clinton's term and serve sort of a trial for two years.

If she learns quickly and adapts, she would have the right to run on her own. But it might not work out well and could create more problems than it is worth. The Dems have enough grief in Illinois.

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[glorialovelace]

We don't need an unqualified person who needs two years of on-the-job training when we have so many experienced people with excellent track records to choose from.

Caroline Kennedy is clearly so oblivious that she thought she was graciously entering a political vacuum. I hope she understands now that this is not the case. The proper thing for her to do at this point is to withdraw.

The fact that commentators are saying that Paterson should make his choice quickly "so as not to hurt Caroline's feelings" is so ridiculous, it's scary.

[radiclib]

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It's hard to disagree with you.
However, I would still contend that she is more qualified to be a U.S. Senator than George W. Bush was to be President.
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[truthglow]

Republicans are soooo afraid of her, and the entrenched Democratic politicians are jealous of her. Too bad. So sad. Good luck to you, Caroline. Don't let those dirty politicians get you down!

[glorialovelace]

I don't think the Republicans are afraid of Caroline Kennedy at all. I think they view her as a pushover -- especially now that it has become obvious that she has no public speaking skills.

[truthglow]

Sure they are. She will do fine once she is in. I heard her speak many times when she was hawking her books. She will shine, and they know it. Once in, she will be there for decades, and everyone knows it! She is very special, and those who covet that seat, both Democratic and RePUKE (Peter King), are attempting to "dirty" her!

[metivo]

Don't underestimate her, Gloria. People did the same thing with 'too nice' Obama.

[heal57]

Hilary Clinton was never made to answer all kinds of personal questions about Bill's 'tif' with Monica, or anything else. Ms. Kennedy would be a great senator from New York. She has raised her children, has done much humanitarian work, and the envy crowd [which probably includes the Clintons] don't like her. That's another reason to select her; oh, and, she LIVES in New York.

[glorialovelace]

One of the problems with commentary from people like you -- who don't live in New York State -- is that you make recommendations while being blissfully unaware of the many gifted congresspersons, mayors and country executives waiting in the wings for that appointment who would not first subject New Yorkers to two years of on-the-job training. And that's aside from Caroline Kennedy's obvious deficiencies, such as poor public speaking skills, and a clearly demonstrated lack of interest until now in New York State or its politics.

[truthglow]

That's it! Old, entrenched CRONY politics!!! First, you tried to keep out Obama, and you couldn't do it. Now, you are doing the same thing to Caroline. It didn't work for Hillary, and it won't work with you people either. It's time for a non-politician, fresh-faced lady to come in and clean things up from your professional politicians!