Dowd's Kennedy column

Dowd wrote that Kennedy has no qualifications, and can't talk properly. When confronted with these deficiencies in Sarah Palin, Dowd referred to the Republican vice presidential nominee's "thin résumé," called her "underqualified," a "bantamweight," and "the two-year governor of an oversized igloo."

Kennedy's government work is far thinner, but, hey, inexperience is a plus these days (four months later):

People complain that the 51-year-old Harvard and Columbia Law School grad and author is not a glib, professional pol who knows how to artfully market herself, and is someone who hasn’t spent her life glad-handing, backstabbing and logrolling. I say, thank God.

But Kennedy sucks just enough at politics: There are senators who sucked worse!.

People are suddenly awfully choosy about who gets to go to the former home of Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond and Robert Torricelli.

Right, probably because New Yorkers would never have voted for those first two guys, or re-elected the third. But, hey, let's have Kennedy, because who cares about the senate, right??

None of this necessarily constitutes institutional bias on the part the paper; Dowd reserves the right to be batshit illogical about basically anyone, anytime, for any reason, such as "I know Caroline Kennedy. She’s smart, cultivated, serious and unpretentious."

Confessore on Kennedy's rival

Moving on to the Times' other Kennedy item today, Nick Confessore found anonymous sources to say an aide of Kennedy rival Andrew Cuomo strongly "suggested" to vaious labor leaders and upstate officials that they not endorse Kennedy. Cuomo isn't officially campaigning for the senate seat even though he totally wants it.

The paper did something similar a few weeks ago on Bloomberg's aide politicking for Kennedy. Balance!

For Kennedy, Self-Promotion Is Unfamiliar, A21

This story on the prospective senator's struggle to sell herself showed her as kind of a cold fish. Which is interesting! She's had "a lifetime of being wooed by others" and now is "courteous but... not exactly passionate." Or qualified, but, hey, that's not NEWS, really.

One Democratic organizer cattily told the Times, "She's raised flags... the recent flubs have been damaging." Ouch. And then there's this:

Byron W. Brown, the mayor of Buffalo, said that when they met recently in his city hall office, he asked if it was O.K. if he called her Caroline. Her response, Mr. Brown said, made for a kind of “Sarah Palin-Joe Biden moment.” “Is it O.K. if I call you Byron?” Ms. Kennedy responded, recalling the vice presidential debate earlier this year.

Probably one of the least provocative (or interesting) Palin comparisons possible. We liked last week's much better. Since it, you know, spoke to her political experience rather than her verbal tics.

But: The headline was "For Kennedy, Self-Promotion Is Unfamiliar." That's a friendly way of putting it.

The Mayor, You Know, Says He Can Relate, A23

Ho ho ho, ha ha ha, the mayor can't talk either, just like ummmmm, you know, Caroline Kennedy. Let's minimize the importance of Kennedy's frightening inability to explain why she'd be a good senator, a handicap even more severe than herUncle Teddy's inability to explain why he'd be a good president. This story existed strictly to quote Kennedy's staunch defender Michael Bloomberg, who said this at a press conference:

“If there is anyone who understands the pain and suffering from having the press criticize how you speak, it is me,” the mayor said during a news conference at City Hall on Tuesday afternoon. “But as I told my oldest daughter when she said, ‘They are laughing at you,’ the only ways I know how to make it better is to go out there and do it every day.” (Yes, you read that correctly: ways.)... He also echoed Ms. Kennedy’s own comments that she would always be held to a higher standard because of her boldface name.

Does Bloomberg even need his own wire service?

Actually, the paper isn't out far on the limb. It's merely passing along the fact that the conventional wisdom in Albany has swung toward detesting Kennedy as entitled and presumptuous rather than being positively infatuated with her as an exciting new bauble named (ZOMG) Kennedy. How about a roundup of hate?

• "The governor is frustrated and chagrined... because he believes that he extended Ms. Kennedy the chance to demonstrate her qualifications but that her operatives have exploited the opportunity to convey a sense that she is all but appointed already."
• Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver: "If I were the governor, I would look and question whether this is the appointment I would want to make, whether her first obligation might be to the mayor of the City of New York rather than the governor who would be appointing her."
• "Her refusal to say over the weekend whether she would back a Democratic candidate next year, when Mr. Bloomberg will seek re-election as an independent, set off intense reaction among some in the party."
• A passive-aggressive supporter, Nassau County executive Thomas Suozzi: "The way that her handlers and strategists are pushing her and trying to box in the governor is damaging the reputation of someone that we all care about."

Reasonably skeptical. But after putting a policy Q&A with Kennedy on its front page, the Times buried this story ran on page A19.

Reasoning that senate candidates have to file an elaborate, 10-part report on their assets, debts and income, and that Kennedy herself oversaw intensive vetting of Barack Obama's running mates, the Times asked Kennedy for "a variety of basic data," including "potential ethical, legal and financial entanglements." Appropriate.

Kennedy refused!

So the Times found three ethics advocates (from Citizens Union, Common Cause and Democracy 21) and a public policy professor (from NYU) to weigh in, and all but one were outspoken that Kennedy should open up.

The paper also said some people "wonder if Ms. Kennedy’s unwillingness to disclose personal information suggests she lacks the stomach for the kind of intrusive questions that could come her way as a candidate in 2010." Ouch!

Also, the Times has been counting how many questions Kennedy has taken from the press on her "tour" of the state (only 11).

The picture (left) makes Kennedy look friendly, but the story is pretty tough. More like this!

Also in Kennedy coverage, the Times explained in an Editor's Note how it inadvertently published a forged supposed letter from the mayor of Paris slamming the candidate: It sent a copy of the edited letter back to the email address attached to the original (presumably a French government address), and was supposed to wait for an affirmative reply before running the letter, but did not.

Sadly, the fake letter was the most skeptical writing about Kennedy in the Times all weekend. Surely there's a genuine cynic out there yearning for space in the opinion section!

Archive: Caroline's Times File

When commenter Aaron Altman on Wednesday read the paper's story about senate-hopeful Kennedy's tour of upstate New York, it started with this provocative sentence:

In a carefully controlled strategy reminiscent of the vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin, aides to Caroline Kennedy interrupted her on Wednesday and whisked her away when she was asked what her qualifications are to be a United States senator.

That's a revealing introduction. And accurate: Even Kennedy's allies think her tight press strategy is misguided, as shown in the attached clip above.

But by the time the story appeared in Thursday's paper, any comparison to former vice presidential nominee Palin, and all mentions of "control," were gone. The new, much more polite beginning read as follows:

The first day of Caroline Kennedy’s tour through upstate New York on Wednesday was meant to be a low-key, decorous excursion, mindful of the skepticism surrounding her bid to be appointed the state’s next United States senator. Fat chance.

Gone, too, was an account of how, when asked by reporters about her qualifications, Kennedy allowed herself to be whisked away by an aide, into a black SUV, saying only, "Hopefully I can come back and answer all those questions."

The reader never learns about about Kennedy's evasion. Instead, he is fed this quote, crafted after Kennedy had some time to think:

“I just hope everybody understands that it is not a campaign but that I have a lifelong devotion to public service... I’ve written books on the Constitution and the importance of individual participation. And I’ve raised my family. I think I really could help bring change to Washington.”

The Times should cover Kennedy's ducking of questions because it's the right thing to do. She has little track record, and appears unqualified for the office she's seeking, making her public behavior all the more important.

But if that's not reason enough, the newspaper should consider appearances. Sanitizing, in public, a story about your publisher's close "friend" will lead some people to believe the paper is suppressing even more information in private. Whether the decision was made by the original reporters or someone higher up, it was a bad call.

We'll be monitoring the Times' Caroline Kennedy coverage on a near-daily basis, always with a logo, probably a tweaked version of the one above. We don't envy the Times writers who have to cover the boss' good friend. It must be tricky. Or at least feel tricky, particularly since the paper is discouraging talk of the relationship.

But Sulzberger's relationship with Kennedy is an important media story. At the very least, it's going to put the paper in the sights of media critics on the prowl for the slightest sign of bias, not to mention political foes of Kennedy looking for evidence of yet another unfair advantage for the politician.

To start things off, we've taken a (hopefully comprehensive look) at the TImes' Caroline Kennedy coverage, Saturday through Monday, and broken it down by category:

Shameless gushery:

• Caroline Kennedy's ascent isn't nepotism, it's evolution in action! "The case of Ms. Kennedy is not really one of nepotism, Dr. Sulloway says, but of its evolutionary cousin, reciprocal altruism — good will without kinship. Altruism toward non-kin occurs in evolution because there’s a net benefit to all." Week In Review? Please. More like Week In Revision.
• Can you believe she's a Kennedy? A real, actual Kennedy? "Ms. Kennedy... is in many ways embarking on a test of the enduring power of her politically royal name... the Kennedy mystique." Closing "man on the street" quote: "She'll be good. It's in her blood."
• You heard she's sleeping with who now? Because I heard no one cares about her private life. Or our publisher's. "Caroline Kennedy is under tabloid attack, but the charge is presumption: even on TV, commentators openly scoff at her brief, somewhat stilted tour of upstate New York and complain that she is seeking appointment to public office with a queenly sense of entitlement."
• Caroline Kennedy took actual positions on actual issues, sort of. Let's feature her staff's boring politician-speak on the front page.

Neutral-ish:

• Uncle Edward can't call labor leaders to make them fall in line behind his niece, or to raise questions about this one union leader who said Caroline Kennedy might not be qualified. But his longtime aide can!
• People often follow family members into politics, because they get free name recognition, they are not intimidated by the political process, and they are bred to seek power, constantly.
• Sad Andrew Cuomo, who has actually qualifications for the job of senator, is dying to campaign for it, but can't, and the coverage of Kennedy is burning him up inside.

• A letter from the mayor of Paris: "With all the respect and admiration I have for Ms. Kennedy’s late father, I find her bid in very poor taste... in my opinion she has no qualification whatsoever to bid for Senator Clinton’s seat... It is both surprising and appalling."
• A joke, but it's on the Laugh Lines blog. Does anyone read Laugh Lines? "Caroline Kennedy would like to be considered Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2009 and has let the magazine’s editor know of her interest in the honor, aides to Ms. Kennedy confirmed today."
• Kennedy didn't vote in the last four New York mayoral primaries! Slacker. But the tabloids had the story first, and the Times ran it on A25.

Pictures!

Aww aren't they sweet? Implied message: If Paterson doesn't appoint her, we, the Times, will shoot this legacy. (Story)

"Some younger voters know little about the woman aspiring to a senate seat." For example, they don't even know she's a Kennedy! A regal Kennedy, with mystique! (Story)

Caroline Kennedy "has been largely silent about details of her political views until Saturday." But she's in Harlem! Smiling! That counts for something, right?