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he NY Times just can’t bring itself to journalistically slug Caroline Kennedy smack-dab in the kisser, as she so rightly deserves.  Here’s the paper’s afternoon lead on the story of Kennedy’s last 24  hours (a.k.a., “I’m out … No, I’m in … No, I’m out):

ALBANY — Problems involving taxes and a household employee surfaced during the vetting of Caroline Kennedy and derailed her candidacy for the Senate, a person close to Gov. David A. Paterson said on Thursday, in an account at odds with Ms. Kennedy’s own description of her reasons for withdrawing.

That one reference to problems with taxes and hired help is pretty much it; the NYT just can’t seem to find a satisfactory source of info into what’s going on in the shoddy and run-down community of Camelot. The NY Post seems to have no such problems, though:

In a stunning revelation, a source close to Gov. David Paterson insisted this afternoon that the governor “had no intention” of picking Caroline Kennedy for New York’s vacant senate seat – because she was “mired” in an issue over taxes, her nanny and possibly her marriage.

Kennedy was “mired in some potentially embarrassing personal issues,” the source said, citing tax liabilities and worker compensation liabilities connected to the employment of a nanny.

The source also said the state of her marriage may have presented a problem as well.

“She has a tax problem that came up in the vetting and a potential nanny issue,” the source said. “And reporters are starting to look at her marriage more closely,” the source continued, refusing to provide any specifics.

So Kennedy, like Geithner, is a tax-dodger – not paying properly either her income or her employee’s worker’s comp taxes. What is it with these fabulously wealthy Dems who want to fling tax money at every poor puke and every big government problem, but can’t bring themselves to actually contribute honestly to the cause? What a bunch of pathetic hypocrites.

And arrogance?  This shows you arrogance!  Kennedy had to know what was going on in her life, yet she blithely assumed that as a World Class Liberal she would skate through without a problem.  It reminds Allahpundit of a similar Dem glitterati a while back:

This reminds me of Edwards running for the Democratic nomination knowing that the Rielle Hunter time bomb would eventually go off. What if he had won? Where would that have left the party? Same with Caroline. Assuming she knew about the nanny, was she planning to keep mum until Paterson announced her as the pick so that he was stuck with her?

Folks, we are entering a season of scandal.  There have been five significant Dem ethical melt-downs since Barack Obama was elected, and we haven’t even fully passed the food we ate on inauguration night yet.

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ow obliging of Ted Kennedy to collapse in full view of the entire nation yesterday, giving his niece Caroline a fine and fitting excuse for ducking, covering, and getting the heck out of her bid to be the new Hillary.

The official excuse for her not yet official withdrawal from consideration, as reported straight man-like by the NYT, stinks:

On Wednesday she called Gov. David A. Paterson, who will choose a successor to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her concerns about Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s deteriorating health (he was hospitalized after suffering a seizure during President Obama’s inaugural lunch on Tuesday ) prompted her decision to withdraw, [the NYT's anonymous source] said.

We didn’t see Caroline drop everything and rush to Teddy’s side when he was first diagnosed, did we?

We all saw  him at the Dem Convention and it was obvious to all he was not a well man, but Caroline was not on his arm. There clearly was no miraculous healing going on between then and now, yet she was comfortable going for a position that would make her all but unable to care for him.

And speaking of caring for him, Kennedy’s got a wife, Victoria Kennedy, and three kids from his first marriage, Kara Anne, in her late 40s, Edward Jr., in his mid-40s, and Patrick, in his early 40s. Plus, he very publicly took on surrogate dad duties for his brother Robert’s 13 children. That’s up to 17 potential caregivers ahead of Caroline in line. (I think a couple of the Robert progeny may have passed away, though.)

Kennedy has hit a storm of criticism, all of it very legit, especially the dynasty/entitlement meme. Polls quoted in the NYT article show the somewhat less dynastic Andrew Cuomo as the people’s choice. And, probably, since she whimsically tossed her designer hat into the ring, she’s had the opportunity to work with political operatives and play the dirty political games.

My bet: Once it became apparent that the job wouldn’t be as much fun as she thought it would be, she decided to remain in her fairytale life. I was thinking for a while she had visions of being the first woman president, a fantasy worth fantasizing given her epical Kennedy roots, so we lost tonight what might have been quite a story to follow a presidential cycle or two from now.

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oming in just a few days under the wire in C-SM’s Most Ridiculous Story of the Year competition is a story on a subject that I’m sympathetic to – the difficulty women who’ve stayed home with their children have coming back to work.  But it still clearly earns a spot on the “most ridiculous” list.

Kids most decidedly do better when mom stays home, and nearly as important, moms do better, too. I saw Incredible Wife’s guilt and anxiety amp up considerably when she worked – first, because we needed her income, then so she could make her Voice of the Victims films – then wind back down when she once again was “there for the girls.”

So why is Anne Glusker’s “Personal Business” column on the subject in Sunday’s WaPo so ridiculous? The title tells the story: She’s a Kennedy, But She’s a Lot Like Us.

Yes, Kennedy, who is worth $100 million, is just another mom who decided to stay home with the kids, and now wants to go back to work!  Really:

Amid all the recent buzz about Caroline Kennedy’s bid for a U.S. Senate seat, there has been a great deal of talk about her connections, her power, her wealth. But the way I see it, if you strip away the glamour, the name and the money, then Caroline is . . . me. And many of my friends. Maybe even you. If, that is, you happen to be a midlife woman raising kids and returning — or thinking of returning, or hoping one day to return — to the full-time workforce.

Yes, I’ve heard the buzz about connections, but I call it dynasty stuff.  And power, and wealth.  But what I’ve also heard that Glusker is afraid to put in her lead is Kennedy’s inexperience.  You strip away the glamour, the name and the money and you’ve got one inexperienced rich gal.  But that most definitely isn’t how Glusker sees it:

A great deal of the criticism around Kennedy’s interest in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s soon-to-be-vacated Senate seat sounds an alarm for women like me. We’ve been at home with the kids, sure, but we’ve also been busy with lots of other things. We’ve been working part-time, consulting, freelancing. Like Kennedy’s, our resumes don’t conform to the conventional, one-job-after-the-other sequence that recruiters expect. When I read a sniping post on Gawker.com that “Caroline has been a happy housewife since getting her law degree, published a few ghost-written books and sat on a few boards that used her celebrity to draw donations,” I thought, hmm, wait a minute. Couldn’t there be a more inventive way to look at her CV?’

Yep, that’s what we need for our incoming U.S. Senators:  A more inventive way to look at their CVs.  Lord knows, she needs it: She hands out the Profiles in Courage award, she worked part-time for the NYC Dept of Education, she’s been on a private school’s board, she’s currently vice-chair of an education foundation and a couple Kennedy-legacy positions.  It’ll take considerable creativity to turn that into a CV for one of the most exclusive and powerful political positions in the world.

Glusker has the creativity:  She calls Kennedy’s experience “diverse”‘ and her resume “unconventional.”  Too bad non of that unconventional and diverse experience has anything to do with the business of running a country via our complex political machinery.

It’s clear she’s using Kennedy as a symbol for her agenda:

Rather than a privileged aberration, I prefer to view Kennedy as a bellwether, a case study in how things could be if only the workplace were more accepting of an unconventional CV, one that may brim with great experience and skills and talent but is also peppered with gaps and one-off projects and volunteering.  …

When we talk about women going back into the workforce, it’s illuminating to consider the circumstances under which they left it in the first place. For many women, it was never truly a choice, never truly voluntary. As Pamela Stone, author of “Opting Out?: Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home,” points out, many are pushed out by jobs with long hours, rigid workweeks and inflexible demands. “These women haven’t opted out,” says Stone. “They’ve been shut out, by workplaces that don’t pair well with family life.”

Of course none of that applies to Kennedy; she’s a “privileged aberration” to Glusker’s model, and somehow I find it hard to accept that stay at home moms desirous of a return to the workplace will join Glusker in seeing Kennedy as the personification of their cause. But Glusker is undaunted:

… Kennedy … is running smack into what social psychologists call the potential vs. performance split. It works this way, according to Kathie Lingle of the Alliance for Work-Life Progress: “The guys in charge say, ‘Oh, John can do it, we know he can.’ They’re assessing his potential.” Whereas, when looking at a female job candidate, they’re likely to say: ” ‘Oh, Sue can’t do it; she’s never done it before.’ ” They’re basing their evaluation on her past performance.

Yep, that’s what’s holding Kennedy back from open-armed acceptance of Her Senatorship: the potential vs. performance split, entirely a guy/gal prejudice thing.  We just know that Gov. Patterson is going to judge her differently than he would judge, say, Andrew Cuomo.  Patterson would just look at Cuomo as a guy … not a former HUD secretary, not a current NY Atty Gen, but just a guy ‘cuz a guy can do it.  (And he’s ex-hubby to a Kennedy!)

Of course the flaw in all of Glusker’s supposition is that Kennedy isn’t angling for a job as a copywriter at an ad agency or a software exec in the Silicon Valley; she’s asking for a free ride to the U.S. Senate, where she’ll have committee assignments that matter to the nation and the world, and will be expected to represent her state during one of the most troubling times in U.S. history.  Glusker attempts to deal with this little matter:

Even though the job Kennedy is trying to nab is a far cry from the account executive or publicist positions that my friends might go after, the phenomenon at work is the same. The reaction seems to be: If she hasn’t followed a straight-and-narrow, logical path, we simply can’t imagine her in the role under discussion.

There’s nothing ridiculous in the statement; we simply can’t imagine Caroline Kennedy in the job given her anything but logical path towards it.  What’s ridiculous is that Glusker ridicules us for not accepting Kennedy as just another housewife wanting to return to work.

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aroline Kennedy wants to be senator, but she doesn’t want to be bothered with disclosure.  We are left to assume that financial disclosure, to quote another famous New  York doyenne, is for the little people.

According to today’s rather scathing NY Times article, Kennedy refused the paper’s request for even the most basic disclosure, including companies she has a stake in and whether she has ever been charged with a crime.

Not deigning to speak to reporters herself, Her Worshipfulness’ spokesminion said Kennedy would not disclose that kind of information “unless and until” she becomes a senator.

In other words, New Yorkers are being asked to accept a nicely lipsticked pig in a poke.  Presumably, Kennedy would disclose the information in mid-May when the Senate ethics rules (oxymoron, anyone?) require financial disclosure forms to be filed.

NY Gov. David Patterson has said she would have to file the same info with him any cabinet-level appointee must file.  Of course, that system of disclosure allowed Patterson to appoint a guy who hadn’t paid any taxes in several years.  Some system.

Other contenders for the job all have previous government experience and therefore have filed financial disclosure forms.  Kennedy, with Obama-like boldness, is trying to convert her lack of experiences into a plus, precluding her need to tell us about her financial background.

The simple matter of fact here is that Kennedy appears to fear disclosure more than she craves the senatorial position.  Unless she’s psychotic, her fear has a rational base; it is there for a reason.  And if that’s so, then the people have a right to know what’s in Kennedy’s background that she doesn’t want released prior to her appointment to the Senate.

So we are supposed to take her without knowing her.  Victor Davis Hansen says that’s exactly the point:

Caroline Kennedy is no doubt a fine individual who by all accounts has led an exemplary life. But her proposed appointment to the US Senate is a rare reflection of ourselves—the glittering of the aristocracy in the left’s vision of an otherwise egalitarian America, the notion that blue-chip certification conveys status and wisdom rather than proven excellence through the life-school of hard knocks, and the ethical bankruptcy of the media that has no principled notion of disinterested inquiry, but now serves as an fawning appendage of the Left.

In short, appointing Caroline Kennedy to the Senate from New York tells us a lot more about ourselves than it does even her.

Art: Tennyson Hayes via Michelle Malkin

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