A Rose By Any Other Name.

So I take it y’all have been following the recent outrage in Empire State politics: A woman who’s never held any kind of elected office but happens to have a big, important surname just up and decides she’d like to be the Senator from New York. To accommodate this sudden quasi-royal prerogative, other deserving candidates in the Democratic party are completely shunted aside, including some who’ve spent their entire careers in public service. And, here’s the real kicker: At the end of the day, despite having very little to show for her legislative career, this well-named woman is for some reason made Secretary of State.

Ok, I’m partly kidding. Nonetheless, I find the recent furor over Caroline Kennedy’s possible two-year appointment to the New York Senate to be a bit willfully obtuse about both recent events and the former occupants of that Senate seat. Even the obvious Clinton analogy notwithstanding, lest we forget: Longtime Massachusetts resident Bobby Kennedy was only tangentially qualified for a New York Senate seat in 1964, and even his brother Teddy was basically appointed the first time ’round. And, besides, if Clinton’s perch doesn’t go to Mrs. Kennedy, who then is waiting in the wings? Well, most likely, Andrew Cuomo. A real bootstrapper, that one.

Don’t get me wrong: In principle, I’m dead set against the idea of Senate seats being doled out on the basis of familial connections. It’s an ugly, monarchical habit, and if the seat ends up going to a relatively unknown pol who’s paid their dues (a la Nita Lowey, who got pushed out for Clinton in 2000), all the better. Still, I’m inclined to think charitably of Caroline Kennedy for several reasons other than her name and historic lineage: her early advocacy of Sen. Obama and the good work she’s done for my sister’s organization over the years, to name just two. And, if Gov. Patterson were to end up choosing her…well, ok. I can think of more egregious injustices in this world. To watch the TNR gang throw an extended fit about it, or read Salon hackmeister Joan Walsh (who, by the way, penned an extraordinarily self-serving 2008 retrospective this past week) put down her Clinton pom-poms for a second to tsk-tsk the Kennedy “celebrity” candidacy is, in a word, irritating.

Wright and Wrong.

“I feel that those citizens who say that have never heard my sermons, nor do they know me. They are unfair accusations taken from sound bites…I served six years in the military. Does that make me patriotic? How many years did Cheney serve?” I haven’t watched the Sunday shows yet, but, if today’s press is any indication, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is the big story in the news, after he delivered remarks in several venues aimed at defending himself against the recent media throng, as well as horrifying attempts by the like of George Stephanopoulos to McCarthify him on national television. (As I said here, we seem to have entirely skipped the rails when kindly ole Mike Huckabee is the biggest voice for tolerance and historical understanding in the conversation.)

At any rate, the return of Obama’s Angry Black Preacher-Man prompted tut-tuts of electoral worry from Clinton-leaning concern trolls like like Salon‘s Joan Walsh, and the usual waiting for the other-shoe-to-drop from breathless political blogs like War Room and Ben Smith. What I haven’t seen yet today, amid all the puttering from the press on the subject of Wright, is any attempt to put the Reverend’s remarks in context of this weekend’s highly dubious acquittal in the Sean Bell case. To wit, New York City cops shoot an unarmed black man and his friends 50 times and end up getting off for it, and, outside of Harlem, there’s barely a shrug, including in the news media. Meanwhile, when it comes to anything and everything involving the fates of Natalee Holloway, Laci Peterson, and any other white damsel in distress, the press drone on about it endlessly, funnelling info to us months or even years after the cases have gone cold. But, as they say, this ain’t Aruba, b**ch.

Is Rev. Wright angry? At this point, and as this weekend’s fiasco makes clear, he has every right to be. Perhaps the press and the punditocracy could investigate more thoroughly why black America may be less inclined to think well of our nation at times, rather than working themselves into yet another holier-than-thou froth about occasional intemperate remarks, and/or endlessly fretting about their potential impact on the electoral whims of the white working class. God forbid these media asshats break out of their echo chamber bubble once in awhile and do some honest-to-goodness reporting. Heck, I’d be happy just to see a few of ’em think for themselves.

Recrimination Time.

“With a week to go before climactic tests in Texas and Ohio, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign team has slipped into full recriminations mode. Looking backward, interviews with a cross-section of campaign aides and sympathetic outsiders suggest a team consumed with frustration and finger-pointing about the apparent failure of several recent tactical moves against Barack Obama. Looking forward, it is clear Clinton’s team has only a faint and highly improvisational strategy about what to do over the next seven days. Simply put, there is no secret weapon.” Politico’s Mike Allen and John F. Harris offer another dismal window into what looks to be the final days in Camp Clinton.

In related news, Atlantic blogger Marc Ambinder — who, along with Politico’s Ben Smith and Salon’s Joan Walsh, has been one of the more obviously Clinton-leaning pundits in the paid blogosphere (nice work if you can get it) — pretty much gives up hope: “The ‘HRC can come back’ bandwagon is rolling through town, and I spent a long time yesterday contemplating whether to jump on board. But the platform on which her supporters stand right now seems more tenuous by the day…Advisers figure that a loss in Texas is as likely as a win in Ohio; a large number of staffers appear to be willing to quit en masse next Wednesday if there’s a split decision and Clinton gives notice that she intends to fight for another month.“

Update: Former Chief of Staff and long-time Clinton loyalist Leon Panetta gives his own post-mortem for the campaign, and puts the blame squarely on Mark Penn: “‘[Penn] is a political pollster from the past. I never considered him someone who would run a national campaign for the presidency,’ he said. He asserted that Mr. Penn ‘comes from an old school, like Karl Rove — it’s all about dividing people into smaller groups rather than taking the broader approach that was needed.’“

Thank You Stephen Colbert.

“Colbert’s deadly performance did more than reveal, with devastating clarity, how Bush’s well-oiled myth machine works. It exposed the mainstream press’ pathetic collusion with an administration that has treated it — and the truth — with contempt from the moment it took office. Intimidated, coddled, fearful of violating propriety, the press corps that for years dutifully repeated Bush talking points was stunned and horrified when someone dared to reveal that the media emperor had no clothes.” Salon‘s Joan Walsh adds her voice to the many of us who feel compelled to say: Thank You, Stephen Colbert! (2nd link via Cliopatria/Trepanatus.)