Mr. Hanson, in brilliant detail, outlines the contrast between the media’s insipid love affair with the Kennedys (and Democrats in general) as opposed to the abject hatred for Republican candidates.
Ms. (Caroline) Kennedy is about as undiverse as one could imagine. She was educated at exclusively private schools among those of her like race and class. Her financial security is due to either inheritance or marriage; there is no evidence of a self-employed stellar legal or business career. But there is plenty of evidence that Ms. Kennedy reflects the current Democratic Party’s obsession with celebrity and Hollywood-like imagery—as we see from the recent politicking of everyone from Oprah to Sean Penn, the Senate run of comedian Al Franken, and the messianic cult that surrounds Barack Obama, from his vero possumus Latin seal to his mass rallies with Greek temple backdrops.
……Indeed, her current newfound political zeal seems predicated on the larger Obamania craze, a sort of brand name groupthink in which romantic liberals imagine a return of JFK’s lost Camelot.
……Kennedy’s Harvard and Columbia educations are cited as proof of her qualifications, as well as her authorship of a variety of edited and co-authored books. But there is no reason to believe that her attendance at the Ivy League was any less facilitated by the powers that be than was the caricatured academic career of the similarly well-connected George Bush, likewise a child of a President. And so just as few in the media cited George Bush’s Ivy League degrees as proof of his erudition, why should we do anything different with Ms. Kennedy about whom we know far less than the former successful two-term Texas Governor (who held his own with, or bested, in six televised debates Ivy Leaguers Al Gore and John Kerry?
……Much is recently made of Barack Obama’s evocation of the ‘Best and Brightest’ Kennedy coterie, as he draws heavily on so-called “smart” people from the Ivy League. But the media’s current heavies in the financial meltdown—President George Bush, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, SEC head Chris Cox, former director of Fannie Mae Franklin Rains, and Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank all have in common only Harvard degrees, which apparently are requisites to have overseen financial disaster rather than tools to have prevented it.
……George Bush, we were told ad nauseam was born on third base and thought he had hit a triple. But when it comes to Ms. Kennedy, her liberal lineage and assumed charisma weirdly nullified the same tired media charges of entitlement that have been customarily leveled against almost every affluent, well-connected Republican politician from Mitt Romney to George Bush.
There were also several liberal media complaints against Gov. Sarah Palin, most prominently three—that she lacked experience for high federal office; that she avoided the media whenever possible; and that she either would not or could not opine on world affairs.
But Gov. Palin had been an elected official for some sixteen years, winning and losing elections until assuming the governorship—always at odds with an entrenched male hierarchy that had run Alaska for years. Through it all, Palin mothered five children without either capital or connections. She endured at the very beginning of her national run a vicious press as interested in ridiculing her as a rube in fancy store-bought clothes as it is catching a glimpse of Caroline’s glitzy labels.
More here: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/desperately-seeking-caroline/
‘America’s royalty’ has been given preferential treatment since the Kennedy clan nurtured (and bought) JFK’s rise to power. No matter how corrupt they are, some people just can’t seem to get past the family history of charisma. The pedastal needs to be kicked out from under the remaining members. They’ve been conning the gullible long enough.