I’m glad that Booman did not follow the mob and join in the anti-Caroline hysteria, neatly disguised (however thinly) as anti-dynasty hysteria.
Dynasties can be good and bad. Would Jane and Markos have also opposed the ascension of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt because he was a cousin of former President Teddy Roosevelt? Should we not have had John Adams’ son as president, since his father had already taken that role?
Competence, interests, and histories are shared in families. When you have something good going, it’s natural to want to repeat it. When you have something bad going on, like the ongoing crimes of the Bush family (Bush Sr. got us into the first Gulf War based in part on false evidence of troops massing at the border of Kuwait – a photo later proved to be a forgery).
Historian Jim DiEugenio wrote an open letter to Markos and Jane Hamsher explaining why they were on the wrong side of history in opposing Caroline. Here are some snippets:
One of the reasons I only lurk [on Daily Kos and FireDogLake] is that I find many of the posters to be very young. Therefore most seem to lack any sense of history and perspective. This includes both of you. Jane was about one year old when Caroline’s father, President Kennedy was elected. Markos was yet to be born when her uncle, Senator Robert Kennedy, was murdered at the Ambassador Hotel in 1968. And apparently, none of that matters to you, since you never mention any of what happened in between or afterward. Markos just says indiscriminately : I hate political dynasties! Sort of like saying: I hate three-piece suits!
The problem is that some of us were around back then. And further, some us have studied what happened in those intervening years–and afterwards. So lumping the Kennedys with say, families like the Rockefellers or Bushes in the dynasty category is, at best, indiscriminate. At worst, it is ignorant, insulting and irresponsible. (For all that it means, why not throw in the Colbys?) Yes, there are some political families that should be avoided. Since it has been proven that they have little interest in providing for the common good. But to lump the Kennedys in with them is utterly preposterous.
Jim then details some of the history Markos and Jane clearly know little about, such as Kennedy’s trip to Vietnam in the 50’s, and his subsequent warnings about trying to conquer them. Kennedy recognized that what John Foster Dulles and others tried to paint as “communism” was really just nationalism. But in our world, when one country tries to protect its own and causes our business class woes, we paint them as communists and use that as an excuse to overthrow them. Especially when they have precious resources – which are not limited to energy resources such as oil and gas.
Nowhere was this more true than in the Congo:
When Patrice Lumumba, nationalist leader of the Congo against the colonialist Belgians, was attempting to keep his country independent, then President Eisenhower sided with the Europeans. And Allen Dulles OK’d a CIA plot to help in his murder. The CIA hurried this plot in the interval between Kennedy’s election and his inauguration since they knew JFK would not back it . His sympathies were on Lumumba’s side. The plot succeeded. (Remember Markos, the CIA is the agency you wanted to join before you took up blogging. Maybe you missed this episode.) But Kennedy still supported the cause of independence for the Congo all the way until his assassination. Against Belgian advocates like William Buckley and Thomas Dodd. (This is Sen. Chris Dodd’s disgraced father. You two should read up on him.)
Jim also talks about Bobby Kennedy’s record. This is one we really wouldn’t wish continued?
In 1963, A. Philip Randolph was organizing the legendary 1963 March on Washington. (You two probably thought it was Martin Luther King.) The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King’s group, signed on. But they could not get a white politician to endorse the demonstration. In July, about six weeks before it began, President Kennedy did so at a press conference. He then called in his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy. He essentially told him that he was entrusting the project to him and it had to come off very well, in fact, perfectly. If not, their enemies would use it to their detriment. It did come off perfectly.
Which leads us to Caroline’s uncle, Bobby Kennedy. A man who, as Attorney General, led what was probably the most unrelenting campaign against organized crime in American history. A campaign that once started, eventually brought the Mafia to its knees. And at this time, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI would barely recognize that there even was such a thing. RFK also forced Hoover into recognizing the fact that the Klan operated a murderous terrorist group that killed civil rights workers. As Attorney General he sued the steel companies when they tried to conspiratorially rig prices to gouge the American consumer. He also actually placed the executives of electric companies in jail when they tried to cheat the government.
Aren’t we always crying about accountability? Bobby Kennedy and his brother pursued white collar criminals to an extent never seen before or sense, in government. But no, we wouldn’t want Caroline in there because heck, she’s just a Kennedy.
Never mind that another son of the JFK/RFK generation, Bobby Kennedy, Jr., has also proven successful fighting the corporations on behalf of the environment and the citizens who suffer the effects of pollution.
Never mind Ted Kennedy’s incredible record of fighting for those who have the least access to government, the poor, the dispossed.
Nope. It’s more important to keep someone out because they happened to be born into a dynasty than to 1) look at the individual’s qualifications and 2) realize that not all dynasties are equal, and some have been incredibly good for our country.
Shame on all in the blogosphere who joined this irrational bashing. And kudos to our fearless leader here who didn’t drink the Kool-Aid and made up his own mind.
