I think it was on the NRP’s “It’s All Politics” podcast maybe, somebody said, “After all, there’s been a Kennedy in the Senate for 65 years.” After all indeed, and with Ted sadly on his way out don’t the rules of succession necessitate we install another one, post-haste?

Yes, yes they do. Caroline Kennedy, daughter, of course, of President John F., announced today that she’s hoping to be named to the seat in the United States Senate being vacated by Hillary Clinton. Media darling, she’s likeley overtaking Andrew Cuomo, another lameo dynast nominee, as the frontrunner for the job.

She sure is a nice, sweet lady with an awfully familiar-sounding name. But what are her, like, qualifications? Aren’t there plenty of non-Kennedy ladies or gentlemen the state of New York that can serve in the U.S. Senate who have some relevant job experience?

The New Yorker’s Hendrick Hertzberg is often wrong and never funny. He put forth these suggestions in this week’s “Talk of the Town”:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, thoughtful and scholarly, would give the new President someone to shoot hoops with. Christiane Amanpour would be a slam dunk for the Foreign Relations Committee. The impossibly distinguished Vartan Gregorian is a one-man academy of arts, letters, and the humanities. Bill T. Jones, who doesn’t need words to make a speech, would make C-SPAN 2 worth watching. A non-dynastic Kennedy, the novelist William, would give upstate New York representation of the first order. Paul Krugman would provide ornery economic smarts. Arthur Laurents, conveniently, is already in Washington, directing the National Theatre revival of his “West Side Story.” If you doubt that Lou Reed knows politics, listen to his album “New York.” Felix Rohatyn is as senatorial as you can get without wearing a toga. Ed Sanders—poet, Pentagon levitator, classics scholar, founding member of the Fugs—is a political force in Woodstock, New York. Toni Morrison’s majestic voice would warm the Senate chamber. No one who ever spent the equivalent of two Senate terms in a complex, ceaselessly scrutinized job in New York has ever done it better than Joe Torre did as manager of the Yankees. Harold Varmus, the head of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and, like Morrison, a Nobel laureate, got lots of money from Congress for the National Institutes of Health when he ran them, during the nineteen-nineties. Perhaps he could do the same for New York—not that such petty considerations are worthy of this exercise.

And I just want to put one more nomination forward to Gov. Patterson: We suggest Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois. He’s about have a lot of free time on his hands.

Caroline Kennedy to Seek Clinton’s Seat [New York Times]
Appointments [New Yorker]
To Replace a Clinton, a Kennedy? [NYT City Room]
Caroline Kennedy Would Like to be a Senator Now, Please [Gawker]