If Caroline Kennedy wants to be the next junior senator from New York, I have no problem with that.  Governor David Patterson will obviously feel some pressure to appoint both her and Andrew Cuomo, and who knows who else is lurking in the shadows for the seat.  I haven’t really heard (nor do I really care) about any other names, so it looks like it’s down to Cuomo and Kennedy.

What agitates me about this slightly is the fact that Kennedy is getting a free pass from the media; she has no political experience whatsoever.  She’s never held political office, never ran for office.  She has no experience in foreign policy, national security, balancing a budget, you get the idea.  She’s getting a break because of her political ideology, her last name, and because she’s a true “feminist.”

On the other hand, we all knew about the battering Sarah Palin took when she was announced as John McCain’s running mate.  Here we had someone who held multiple political offices, has local and statewide executive experience, has had to balance budgets, make sound decisions regarding tax policy, energy policy, etc, etc.  Yet because she was a conservative and didn’t believe in true “feminism,” she was dragged through the mud.  Trig wasn’t her baby.  She supposedly belonged to a political party that supported seceding from the union.  She was a nazi sympathizer because she supposedly supported Pat Buchanan for President.  She had an affair with one of her husband’s former business partners.  And we all know about the clothes.

You get the drift.

On one hand, there’s Sarah Palin; a strong (conservative) woman who busted her tail to get where she was and didn’t have the luxury of a famous or important husband, a media that drools over her, huge lumps of cash at her disposal, or a last name that makes liberals swoon.  On the other hand, you have Caroline Kennedy, whose chief accomplishment is having a last name that makes liberals swoon.

I know we’re talking abou the VP position over a Senate position, but give me a break.  Caroline Kennedy is getting almost as free a pass as Barack Obama got for the past two years.