Royal Family

A story in today's LA Times, Caroline Kennedy launches Senate campaign reads for all the world like coverage of the British royal families. Read the article but imagine it's about a Britain rather than the US. it's alarming.

I have always thought very highly of Caroline Kennedy, ever since those days of seeing her on TV holding her little brother's hand during the televised funeral of her father. She is a bright, able, attractive, principled, charismatic, and one must assume capable woman. She's likely to make a good senator (are you listening Larry Craig, who has none of those qualities?). I am uncomfortable, however, with the thought she can appear out of nowhere on the scene in Washington to take up willy-nilly one of the most powerful offices in the land. No apprenticeship. No working a way up through the ranks. Everyone seems to assume she's qualified, because of her name!

It is my understanding one of the biggest fears of the founding fathers of this nation was the establishment of an entrenched aristocracy such as the one that existed in England at the time of the colonies. Kennedy, and Bush, and Cuomo as mentioned in the article, have become the names of our ersatz aristocracy. This is a bad precedent.