Posts Tagged ‘Caroline Kennedy
The Mystery of the Filthy, Filthy Carpet — PART FIVE: We All Live At Grey Gardens Now
As those of you who’ve been closely following the unfolding “Mystery of the Filthy, Filthy Carpet” well know, a chance encounter with a dirty (and some would say downright filthy) carpet in a big law firm here in downtown Chicago has evolved in the last few days into an important economic theory I’m developing…which involves measuring and interpreting the neglect and accumulating filth in big city office buildings as a 21st Century version of the old “canaries in a coal mine” that previously warned miners of approaching disaster in other centuries; in our case, my theory is that filthy carpets and poorly-maintained washrooms in the offices of something like a major law firm in a shiny skyscraper are a clarion call that the nation’s on the verge of a major economic collapse (since firms that are doing well financially would not slash their cleaning and maintenance budgets like this, at least not in the areas of their offices that are reserved for clients, guests, and other visitors).
My main contention in all of this is that a big law firm with a prestigious address in Chicago is expected to be immaculately clean at all times, and up until just recently these places would have spent whatever it took to maintain that expected image of cleanliness…so we are in uncharted territory in this country if big law firms and other businesses that Chicago depends on to survive can no longer afford to keep up those appearances.
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At first I was just startled by the filthy and unsanitary conditions of the Hinshaw & Culbertson’s Chicago offices…and as a professional courtesy I wrote to the Senior Partners of the firm to make sure they knew just how bad things had been allowed to get in their lobby and men’s room. I just thought it was the polite thing to do as a visitor, since I’d certainly want someone to tell me my carpet was unacceptably filthy or that my bathroom resembled a space that would be more commonly found in an abandoned bus station…in Mexico. One of my friends suggested that perhaps the partners of the Hinshaw firm all have some degree of autism (or even Asperger’s Syndrome) and are, thus, unaware of their surroundings to the point where they’d never realize how poor everything looked to a client or visitor. ”They could just be a bunch of eccentrics and not care,” one friend in particular advised. I’ve never met Donald L. Mrozek or J. William Rogers (the big cheeses at the firm), but I did see Mrozek walk through the lobby wearing a long black coat, a red scarf, and (I believe) a black hat while I was sitting on the couch staring at that filthy carpet (and photographing it in an obvious way). Mr. Mrozek is an older man who looked grandfatherly and is the kind of guy who would have been played by Andy Griffith in the movie that will no doubt eventually be made of all this (but since “Matlock” and “Sheriff Taylor” passed away last year, I don’t know who they’ll get for the part…Wilford Brimley, maybe?). The man in charge of the Hinshaw firm was coming back from something he had to do outside when I saw him, unless he just keeps his coat and scarf on him at all times during the day (in case there’s an emergency or something…or maybe it just costs too much to heat the parts of the offices that visitors don’t step into).
I haven’t heard back from Mr. Mrozek or anyone else at the Hinshaw firm about my letter to them, but I didn’t really ask them for any kind of response. My email just more or less informed the Senior Partners that their carpets were filthy and that their men’s washroom was the dirtiest and creepiest I had ever encountered this side of a horror movie. I honestly don’t even know what sort of response a company can give to that, besides admitting “Yah, we know” or saying “Sorry everything was so gross and dirty while you were here”. This is one situation in which Hallmark most certainly does not stock a selection of cards.
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Operating in the capacity of a concerned citizen, Good Samaritan, and “local busybody”, I next asked actress Ann B. Davis (of Brady Bunch fame) if she could remember any really excellent (and inexpensive) cleaning tips that I could perhaps pass-on to the folks at Hinshaw & Culbertson the next time I am there for a meeting. I was raised in the Catholic Church and attended all the Bazaars, roast beef dinners, Christmas parties, and other things the parish organized…and I always remembered my grandmother Emma, in particular, having an eagle’s eyes when it came to spotting someone in the throng who maybe didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket for the dinner or couldn’t afford another spin on one of the carnival rides in the church parking lot (but she could tell the person really wanted to twirl around for a while). There’s just something about the filthy carpeting in this law firm and its disaster of a men’s room that has brought the “Grandma Emma” out in my DNA, and so I wanted to help them help themselves by finding household hints they could maybe use to tidy up a bit; this is just the sort of thing that Emma would have done…though she probably would have even offered to clean up their mess herself, since she was just an awesome and loving church lady like that. I am not that nice and don’t aspire to be, but I do like to help people who’ve made a complete mess of things.
Grandma Emma’s been gone for some years now, but the Holy Spirit moved me to think of her and my childhood in Cleveland and compelled me to find someone else who could help the hapless Hinshaw firm with their filthy carpet and stinky men’s room when I didn’t receive an immediate response from the woman who once played housekeeper “Alice Nelson” on an old tee-vee show I watched in reruns. So, naturally, I thought next to ask lifestyle expert “Heloise” what she would do about these carpets and the mess in the men’s room…but I am still waiting to hear back from her as well. Since I didn’t tell her this was an emergency or anything, it could be a while.
In the meantime, scores of readers here on this site offered their own handy solutions to Hinshaw & Culbertson’s cleaning woes…to the point where I think we now have all of that covered. If this firm continues to have filthy carpets and a dirty men’s room after reading all of your loving and thoughtful cleaning tips, then these people just want to be dirty and there’s nothing much we can do about that. Or — which is kind of depressing — a firm like this just can’t afford to stay clean any longer…and can’t even find room in the budget to hire someone to use common lemon juice and elbow grease to make their offices sparkle (in addition to having Stanley Steamer or someone with a Rug Doctor come in and shampoo the carpeting).
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It was at this point in my letter-writing that I realized the Holy Spirit had deposited me inside those Hinshaw offices for a reason last week…and that “The Mystery of the Filthy, Filthy Carpet” was deeper than even the most stubborn of stains in their lobby. Yesterday I wrote to author and legal expert John Grisham to see if he could give me any insight into what compels a large firm like Hinshaw & Culbertson to neglect their lobby and men’s room like this…and in writing to him I realized that I might have accidentally stumbled upon a major new economic theory where dirty carpet in a big law firm is actually an indicator of approaching economic doom for our entire country. This, to me at least, was sort of like “Doc Brown” hitting his head on his toilet and accidentally inventing the time-traveling “Flux Capacitor” in the Back to the Future movies of the 1980s. The inspiration for this new economic indicactor, thus, partially came from Grisham’s many books set in big law firms…where the firms he described were always immaculate and sparkling (with a fortune spent on upkeep and maintenance, no doubt). Since I’m a fan of his books (and have read all of them, except for the junky ones) and my expectation for a big law firm like Hinshaw & Culbertson was for it to be spotlessly clean like in those books…the fact that I arrived for an appointment with one of their partners and instead found the place filthy convinced me that something bigger than just poor office management was at play.
[ Click above to embiggen: the latest Internet meme to sweep the nation ]
Meanwhile, the Internet (as it so often does) took my “dirty carpets in a big law firm” turn of phrase and ran with it (which is something that would happen in one of the exciting John Grisham legal adventures)…and apparently it’s now been featured on UrbanDictionary as a newly-coined idiom that updates the “canaries in a coal mine” warning sign for the 21st Century. Clearly, there’s something to the fact that a big law firm just doesn’t normally allow its carpets to become so filthy (or its men’s room to resemble something even Stephen King would be scared to dream about) unless there was a serious problem behind the scenes that we just might not know about. I’m surprised by how quickly people have been making up mouse pads and tee shirts with the meme “dirty carpets in a big law firm”, but this idiom must really resonate with people who clearly feel a “heaviness” or a “malaise” hovering over our economy since 2008…despite the Ministry of Truth that is our national media’s best efforts to pretend “We’re in recovery!” or “Everything’s just fine now!”. I know that young people in their 20s and 30s are intensely fond of mouse pads and love wearing the coolest new tee shirt, so no doubt you’ll soon be seeing all of this paraphernalia wherever you live too. I’m still not entirely sure what “Tumblr” is, but I bet in the next few days there will be a “Tumblr” collection of hipsters photographing themselves wearing “dirty carpets in a big law firm” gear while doing cart wheels or shaking their butts in front of large office buildings coast to coast. It’s just how the Internet works when a new theory on economic indicators captures the public’s imagination this way.
I think this is because when people see filthy carpeting in a fancy office building while visiting a purportedly prestigious law firm, they know there’s a serious economic problem in our country right now…and,when they stumble into the men’s room at that firm and find stagnant water on the floor, clogged toilets with all manner of YUCK! floating everywhere, and the general appearance that the place hadn’t been cleaned in a great while, they become even more convinced that the Democrats’ economic policies have pushed our nation onto the precipice of absolute and catastrophic ruin. The simple truth is that if we really were “recovering” then the seams wouldn’t be so glaringly showing in offices like Hinshaw & Culbertson…which give the impression that the firm is months away from some sort of institutional collapse. I think after Barack Obama’s reelection most of us realize there is nothing that can be done any longer to prevent this ruin…but I for one cling to the prayer that after the Democrats are done inflicting all this damage that we’ll ultimately be able to rebuild (though it will be from the ground up, at essentially Square One).
I think the reason the “dirty carpets in a big law firm” meme has caught on so fast is because people can see this wherever they go, even if there isn’t a branch of Hinshaw & Culbertson in their town. Malls that were once glittering showplaces are now dingy and unkempt, with stores shuttered and quite often all the fountains long ago turned off to save money. Here in Chicago, the once bustling “vertical malls” along Michigan Avenue were all mostly long ago abandoned…with at least one of them more closely resembling a mausoleum than a shopping center on my last visit. Readers have emailed me over the last few days of my investigation into “The Mystery of the Filthy, Filthy Carpet” to talk about restaurants, bars, grocery stores, and other places they frequent becoming noticeably dirtier the last few years…as if cleaning crews had been dismissed, or there was a general cutback in in hours for the people who once maintained these establishments as veritable showplaces. I can think of dozens of places I used to love going to that seem to be skimping on ingredients or embracing a more generic or cheaper way of doing things…all seemingly to save money. There’s a tangible sadness everywhere…and just a general sense that there’s just not enough money flowing to properly maintain anything.
Here in Boystown, I know of a bar that used to go all-out for its holiday and festival decorations…with lavish flower arrangements that could have easily time-traveled from the heady days at Versailles (or been flown in from Washington after the latest of Michelle Antoinette Obama’s extravagant soirees), but this place now seemingly has its staff amateurishly decorate for events, instead of hiring expensive professionals (AND they are having the staff dance in speedos and jocks for their parties now too, instead of bringing in some of Boystown’s professional go-go boys…which is just sad, and kind of like when a movie studio replaces the talented actress you liked in a film with a much cheaper and weirder-looking one for the less expensive TV series spinoff).
Simultaneously (and its a weird converse of all this descent into shabbiness), I’ve also noticed the guys getting increasingly hotter in menial jobs and service positions at drug stores, fast food restaurants, car washes, etc. There are a lot of buff, Abercrombie-looking guys working as receptionists wherever I go too (and that was not the case when I first moved to Chicago eight years ago, believe me…I was single then and I’d definitely have noticed and would remember). That makes me think that the job market is just so bad that people who wouldn’t have been caught dead flipping burgers (and never had to, because they were so good looking that those kind of jobs were always “beneath them”) now apply for those minimum-wage jobs because they are the only positions available. Hope! Change!
I’ve noticed the crime rate in Chicago skyrocketing since Barack Obama took office, too…which could be a result of the people who used to fill all those menial jobs (the ones now being staffed by recently-graduated-from-college hotties) being pushed out, since what manager WOULDN’T want to hire the handsome gay guy desperate for work instead of the thug with a criminal record or the Spanish-speaker who still refuses to learn English (even after living here for many years)?
A big law firm cutting back on cleaning expenses and allowing its office carpets and men’s room to become filthy and unsanitary is happening in the same economy where a bar across town is drastically chopping its flower and decorating budget…and across the street the place that used to hire buff male strippers is no longer paying those guys…and so they’re forced to take work doing things they never had to do because the easy money and glamorous gigs were always so plentiful (until 2008 or so, when the Depression started)…which makes it impossible for people on the very bottom rungs of society to get the unskilled and menial jobs they count on…pushing those guys into committing more crimes…which has its own effect on the downward spiral of our country.
It really is all interconnected and related…and so the “Mystery of the Filthy, Filthy Carpet” has much more relevance to you than you might have thought when I first launched this investigation a few days ago. I’m not an economist, but I also think “dirty carpets in a big law firm” could end up being the defining indicator that we’re truly in an economic Depression right now…but the Ministry of Truth that serves as our national media refuses to admit it. I’ll be working on fleshing this out in the next few days as my investigation continues…and hope you contribute your own thoughts to this in comments below (or in private emails to me on the topic). As all of us professional mystery-solvers say, “The investigation continues!”.
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While I was looking for a major economist to write to for help with my “dirty carpets in a big law firm” theory, I started thinking about the people who are really responsible for setting the stage for life as we know it to collapse with Barack Obama at the helm. One of the most glaring groups of these people are the Kennedys…and the de facto carrier of that “dynastic” torch these days is really HRH Princess Caroline of Kennedy, now that her murderer uncle Ted resides deep down below (where all the goblins go), as my Grandma Emma would have put it. You might not be aware of this (though you’re about to be), but Princess’s mother, St. Jackie of Kennedy (to the press, at least), once stood idly by and allowed relatives of hers to descend into squalor (with filthy carpets and stinky bathrooms of their own)…until she and her sister Lee Ratsiwell (sp?) were publicly shamed for what they allowed to happen at “Grey Gardens”….which had a lot more wrong with it than just stained carpets like those at Hinshaw & Culbertson.
I believe Princess Caroline deserves an earful about what I’m uncovering in “The Mystery of the Filthy, Filthy Carpet” because all of us kind of live in Grey Gardens now, with the Kennedys being as responsible for what’s happened to our economy as Jackie was for the ruin of her aunt and cousins.
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VIA US MAIL — 2/25/2013
Mrs. Caroline Kennedy
c/o Josh Isay
SKD Knickerbocker
594 Broadway – Suite 805
New York, New York 10012
Dear Caroline,
I write to you this morning despite the two of us not ever having the best working relationship (in that I find you to be our country’s continued answer to Roald Dahl’s loathsome creation “Veruca Salt”…and you by all accounts seem unaware I exist) because I hold you at least somewhat personally responsible for the prolonged economic mess our nation’s endured since you and your “Uncle Teddy” (who I remind you was a drunk serial abuser of women and also a murderer) anointed Barack Obama as “The Lightbringer” and “The One” back in the winter of 2008. And thus foisted this man and his agenda on our country.
I think your Uncle also gave Obama a dog we never see anymore…and then Obama named it after his own initials, which is only slightly less revolting than the dog being a “Portuguese water dog” formerly owned by the porcine Kennedy who had drowned a women. Honestly, your kin and the Obamas are 90% of why I can just never vote Democrat ever again…especially after appreciating what Democrats do to the country when in the White House.
While you seem to have suffered along with the rest of us these last five years, that’s largely a result of poor decisions you personally made and the inept handling of your public image by Mr. Isay and the SKD Knickerbocker firm. I do (sort of) feel obliged to thank you for making such an ass of yourself in December of 2008 when you brattily tried to grab Hillary Clinton’s soon-to-be-vacated Senate seat…because that was a hilarious spectacle to behold (and just about the only levity us Hillary 2008 supporters had after your family’s betrayal of the Clintons). Your tantrums of “I wants it, I wants it, I wants it!” remain legendary…and just about the only good times had by so many of us in that horrible, horrible year.
Then, when Obama was officially president and followed Governor David Paterson’s lead and himself humiliated you by picking other people to be his ambassadors to the Court of St. James or France…and after the Vatican specifically said it would refuse your credentials if you’d be sent over there…it really seemed like nobody at all wanted a damn thing to do with you, which is how I suspect a majority of people in this country (outside the media ranks, of course) feel about your entire “Kennedy Family”. That was funny too, so thank you for whatever you did behind the scenes to cost yourself the ambassadorships you seem to feel entitled to for helping Obama so much.
You are a woman who had (almost) everything handed to her and until 2008 was considered our “American Princess”, but you’ve really never amounted to much in this life. Every now and then you have someone gather up notecards or grocery lists your mother, Jackie Kennedy, scribbled in her later years and you repackage them as “Edited by Caroline Kennedy” and sell them at craft fairs or wherever…but these are hardly accomplishments and I suspect you know that. You’ve been so quiet the last few years I’ve vacillated between thinking you are plotting your comeback and wondering if you were just being lazy, but I don’t think the jury’s still out on that anymore.
You are lazy…and also very much like your mother in relation to her role in allowing your cousins, the Bouvier Beales, to degenerate into squalor in their home, Grey Gardens, back in the 1970s. The Ministry of Truth that is our national media has always protected and advocated for “The Kennedy Family” (in ways in which the British papers have never served the actual royals in “The House of Windsor”), so most Americans don’t even realize that your grandfather “Black Jack Bouvier” stole the rightful inheritance of your great-aunt “Big Edie” Bouvier Beale…and that your grandfather then absconded with that money for the benefit of your mother Jackie and her sister (which was your aunt Lee). The amount of money your grandfather stole from his sister and her daughter would be around $800,000 today, adjusted for inflation. That’s a fortune that would have prevented the Beales from falling into poverty and losing their home to abject squalor and ruin.
Jackie Kennedy, your mother and our former First Lady, knew full well what horrible conditions your cousin and great-aunt were living in at Grey Gardens…but she chose to do nothing about it for many years, despite no longer needing any of the fortune your grandfather had stolen for her when she was just a girl. But, after a documentary film crew discovered “Big Edie” and her daughter “Little Edie” surrounded by filth and terrorized by raccoons in the falling-down-around-them ramshackle that had become their home, your mother was publicly shamed into paying for Grey Gardens to be cleaned and “Big Edie” to have a few dented scheckles to live off-of for the last few years of her life.
Your mother is considered a saint in our national media…and I grew up in a household where she was forever revered for her “grace” and her style. She was, however, clearly not someone who did the right thing unless she was called onto the carpet with a public shaming and forced to right a wrong she was personally responsible for. I don’t know how “graceful” or “stylish” that ultimately is, but I’ve never looked at “St. Jackie” the same since I watched Grey Gardens.
I feel that you, as the caretaker of the “Kennedy legacy”, have a responsibility to all Americans in much the way your mother owed your relatives at Grey Gardens…because your selfishness, stupidity, and lack of situational awareness at a critical juncture of our nation’s history had a detrimental impact on us all.
With so much falling down around and the whole country feeling like there’s a heavy cloud over our heads, I feel like we’re all sort of living at Grey Gardens now…and that’s because of the actions of your Uncle Ted and you back in 2008 that pushed Barack Obama towards the Democrats’ nomination and into the presidency. That intervention in the process on your part prevented Hillary Clinton from becoming the 2008 nominee…and I think it altered the course of our nation’s history because I don’t believe she would have allowed everything to collapse into economic ruin around us the way that Obama has. In fact, I do believe without reservation that Obama is enjoying seeing the country degenerate into squalor…because that’s part of his “social justice” and “redistribute the wealth” outlook on life in a global sense.
As you are no doubt aware, I’m working this week on a major theory that ties observable phenomena to the real state of our economy, with things like the disrepair and abandoned maintenance of office buildings being a major indicator that we’re currently in a Depression that was caused by the actions of Barack Obama. You’ve read how I discovered this connection when I sat in the waiting area of the law firm Hinshaw & Culbertson and was shocked by how filthy they had allowed their carpeting to become and how stinky and vile they kept their men’s washroom. I believe I have seen pictures of you online standing with Robert K. Shannon, one of the partners in the Hinshaw firm, so perhaps you are personally aware of how filthy the carpeting and washrooms are in his Chicago offices. I’m not accusing you of having anything to do with their carpets becoming so filthy, but based on what I know about you from observing your behavior all these years I would not be surprised to find out you at the very least threw the toilet paper around in the restroom. It’s just something you seem like you would do, just because you could, and then you’d deny it later.
I draw your attention to the fact that the phrase “We All Live at Grey Gardens Now” looks to resonate with so many in the days and months ahead, especially as the approaching onslaught of Obamacare regulations and burdens obliterate many small businesses and result in millions of Americans losing their jobs and falling into poverty soon. I hope the public holds you at least in part personally responsible for this…and I suspect your handlers sense this possibility, because you really have been keeping an uncharacteristically low-profile lately. Not even fresh shipments of faberge eggs to Bergdorf-Goodman’s have been able to coax you out of reclusivity.
It’s almost exactly the way your mother behaved right before the “Look at what Jackie allowed to happen at Grey Gardens!” outrage erupted in the mid-70s.
Like mother, like daughter, I suppose.
Only your mother just allowed her aunt and cousin to suffer in squalor caused by the greed of her father…while you stand in the ruins of “Camelot” and watch the entire country before you collapse into a “Grey Gardens” state of neglect, forfeited prosperity, and dirty carpets (in big law firms and everywhere else) because people in all levels of our society truly are suffering greatly in this Depression that the state media won’t acknowledge. This is, of course, all thanks to your family’s maneuverings five years ago that put us collectively on this course.
This is the part in letters like this where I would normally ask someone to do something or another to help…or to solicit their advice on where we can go from here to make things better…but, who am I kidding? You are Caroline Kennedy and are not especially of much use or worth to anyone…but even if you were at least a decent enough person as your mother and you could be publicly shamed into action under the right circumstances, the mess you helped push our country into is so much bigger than the one “St. Jackie” allowed to manifest at Grey Gardens. I guess the only thing I can ask of you is to just not do anything to make it worse and to just remain in cloistered exile the way you have been lately.
I guess you could always start shopping again…because that would help some merchants in New York, at least. So, yah, do that, Caroline. While everyone else tries to claw out of the heap you and your family pushed the country into.
Regards,
Kevin DuJan
Editor-in-Chief, HillBuzz.org
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QUESTION for COMMENTS: Have you seen Grey Gardens and do you also find a connection between the state of that mansion’s decay and the Kennedy Family’s responsibility for the nation’s current economic condition?
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Read the rest of “The Mystery of the Filthy, Filthy Carpet” HERE.
In Case You’re Not Noticing, Linda Lingle’s Up 6 Points in the Hawaii Senate Race
This last week I’ve been talking to a lot of people in Hawaii while chasing down information on the $35 million beachfront estate in Kailua that Democrat donors like Penny Pritzker here in Chicago are buying for the Obamas’ post-presidency living arrangements (beginning in January 2013).
Hawaiians are an interesting people — they play their cards really close to the vest and while they give information easily if you ask them the right questions, they aren’t big on excitedly coming right out and telling you anything. They’re very laid-back by nature and just go with the flow of a lot of things.
Very casually, I’ve heard several times that Linda Lingle — the Republican candidate — is leading in Hawaii’s Senate race and is performing in much the same way she did in the 2002 gubernatorial campaign she also won. Hawaiians both know her and like her…and seem inclined to send her to Washington to represent them in the Senate.
They like her better than they like Democrat challenger Mazie Hirono, and they’ve proved that in the past since Hirono is the woman Lingle defeated to become Governor in the first place back in 2002.
Lingle has a track record of beating Hirono — which might be because some older Hawaiians don’t have fond feelings towards the Japanese and Hirono is an immigrant from Japan. People my age and under are so removed from WWII and the horrors the Empire of the Rising Sun committed in the Pacific…but those in my parents generation and older can either recall hearing vidid stories about the Japanese during the war or actually lived through Pearl Harbor themselves.
Is this the reason that Hirono’s trailing Lingle while Barack Obama is sure to win the state of Hawaii? I think so.
The corrupt media’s not talking about any of this, of course. I think that’s because they’re lazy and assume that if Obama’s going to carry the state that Hirono will ride his coattails.
I think the Senate race is going to be a lot like the Prop-8 vote in California in 2008, however. You remember that: Obama carried California easily while the majority of black voters casting ballots for him ALSO voted for Prop-8, which was a vote against gay people wishing to marry in the golden state. Black Obama voters wanted a black president while also wanting to punch gays in the face, too.
I think in 2012 that Obama’s Hawaiian voters will select him as president while also voting against Hirono (and for Lingle, whom they know, and at least like better than Hirono). I don’t understand the race issues happening in Hawaii but the stories I’ve heard from people on the ground there don’t paint Japanese immigrants to Hawaii in a very good light, with claims from some quarters that “they’re taking over!”. That’s clearly playing against Hirono on some level. It looks like she’s a terrible campaigner, too, who doesn’t relate well with people and earns a lot of bad press for blowing people off.
Think of her as someone in the Martha Coakley, Elizabeth “Fauxcahontas” Warren, Tammy Baldwin, Caroline Kennedy mold.
Chime in if you live in Hawaii or know enough about the state to weigh in on this issue.
I’ve only been to Hawaii once, when I was in my 20s and thought it would be a great idea to get SCUBA certified and then go on to become a dive instructor and live there forever in “paradise”…but an encounter with a tiger shark near Molokini changed my mind about a Bruce Chatwin-esque life of adventure amongst the palm trees and on beaches and I went back to Cleveland where the river might catch fire now and then but there aren’t any prehistoric monsters in the water.
My gut tells me Lingle’s going to win in Hawaii and it will be an unexpected (by the corrupt media) pickup for Republicans.
What do you think?
CONFIRMED: HRH Princess Caroline of Kennedy and Maria Shriver pressured History Channel to cancel “The Kennedys” miniseries.
As soon as the History Channel announced it was canceling “The Kennedys” miniseries (already filmed, and starring big name stars like Greg Kinnear and Katie Holmes), I knew HRH Princess Caroline of Kennedy had something to do with it.
Turns out, she and cousin Maria Shriver apparently took a break from shopping at Bergdorf’s one day and pressured the History Channel not to tell the truth about their family.
The Hollywood Reporter has more on this story, of how Princess Caroline and cousin got their way.
Anne Sweeney is the head of ABC/Disney Television Group.
The Walt Disney Company is part-owner of AETN…the A&E Television Networks, which owns the History Channel.
Anne Sweeney serves on the AETN board.
HRH Princess Caroline Kennedy has a book deal with Hyperion Publishing (it’s unclear if she’s pledged to read a book, or to write one). The book is a collection of letters written by Jackie Kennedy, which Princess Caroline will collect a large check for “editing”.
Hyperion is owned by The Walt Disney Company.
Princess Caroline threatened to sink the book deal and not do any publicity for it if the History Channel ran “The Kennedys” miniseries.
Meanwhile, Kennedy cousin Maria Shriver pressured NBC executive Jeff Gaspin to cancel “The Kennedys” miniseries, since Gaspin serves on the AETN board with Anne Sweeney. Shriver is also a close personal friend of Sweeney’s, so she and Princess Caroline tag-teamed her.
Showtime is currently in talks to air the miniseries, which just proves how stupid both Maria Shriver and Princess Caroline are.
More people watch Showtime than the History Channel…and the miniseries will air in Canada on March 6th. Following that, it will no doubt sell like gangbusters on dvd, where people will snatch it up to see what the Kennedy family tried its best to prevent us all from seeing.
Princess Caroline should stick to shopping…the only thing in life she is actually good at. I’d say the same thing about Maria Shriver, but I don’t think she’s even good at that.
Separated at BLECH!
- Separated at BLECH!
If do-nothing Senator John Kerry ever left the house in drag, he’d look suspiciously like do-nothing Senator-wannabe and royal dilettante Caroline Kennedy.
Maybe they’ve been the same person ALL ALONG.
If the Christmas werewolves didn’t give you those nightmares you’ve been wanting, you’re welcome.
Is it just us, or does Caroline Kennedy remind you of precious little Veruca Salt?
“I wants it, I wants it, I wants it!”
Whatever precious little Veruca Salt wants, her daddums gets her.
Whatever precious Princess Caroline wants, her Unky Teddy gets her.
Where’s Caroline’s red dress when she needs it?
Did somebody order a tantrum?
Because if America’s princess doesn’t get what she wants, a tantrum is what we’re all going to get.
Though, increasingly, it seems an urgent call from the Obama transition team regarding desperate need of Princess Caroline’s special brand of magic in London will be the ultimate resolution to her shameful bid for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat. Obama rescued Valerie Jarrett from the Blagojevich-mess in Illinois’ senate replacement gambits by announcing he desperately needed her magic on his White House advisory team.
Just wait…that’s going to be Princess Caroline’s lifeline out of her own mess, too.
And she will actually make a decent ambassador to Great Britain – where her regal bearings will seem quite at home.
Caroline Kennedy refuses to disclose finances. "Princesses ain't gotta!"
The New York Times is reporting today that Caroline Kennedy refuses to make financial disclosures pursuant to her oddly handled campaign to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate. In short, Princess Caroline refuses to comply with either the standards Obama has set for application to any post within his administration (which includes a 63-page document listing every text message, email, resume, or other correspondence ever sent) or the requirements to actually run for a United States Senate seat in a proper election (10-page publicly available document listing mortgages, credit card debt, financial assets, book deals, and any payments made to her over $5,000 in the last three years).
Princesses ain’t gotta!
That seems to be Caroline’s attitude, anyway. Since she’s appealling to Governor David Paterson for an appointment to the Senate, Princess Caroline is trying to have things both ways, to get HER WAY. She wants to pressure Paterson to hand her the seat, so she’s awkwardly campaigning in places like Harlem, where she appeared uncomfortably with Al Sharpton last week, and has made sporadic appearances in upstate New York, where previously she didn’t seem aware there was even an UPSTATE New York to appear in (“What’s a Utica?”). But, she also wants to keep her finances secret, so presumably no one knows how much she and her late brother made selling all of her mother’s throw pillows and afghans at auction back in 1996.
She’s also refusing to note what companies she has a stake in or whether she’s ever been charged with any crime. She says she will not disclose any of this until she becomes a Senator.
So there! Princesses ain’t gotta!
Now, you know we like to make fun of things around here, especially ridiculous things the spoiled and privileged do to make themselves look ridiculous, but the way Caroline Kennedy has been handling herself lately is just too much. We’ve known small children who’ve behaved better while hounding their parents for that shiney new Christmas toy, that remote controlled dinosaur or doll that wets itself in some fabulously realistic new way. We ALL know what Princess Caroline wants in her Christmas stocking this year, and we’re all certain she’ll throw a mighty tantrum if she doesn’t get her way, but even the most spoiled little children feign respect and good manners around Christmas. When Santa is watching. That’s part of the wonder of the holiday season – that magical dusting of snow and glitter on everything turns the most terrible tykes into expiration-dated angels, good until Christmas morning at least.
Well, princesses ain’t gotta, we guess, because Caroline wants her present tied up in glorious Christmas gift wrap, with none of the pedestrian good behavior normally required for such fabulous gifts.
Thinking back to her mother’s old throw pillows (which sold for $400-900 bucks a pop back in the mid-90s), we can’t stop wondering about how Jackie Kennedy would have behaved in this situation — a situation Jackie Kennedy would have never gotten herself into.
If she would run for office like any other person and win in 2010, we’d imagine Jackie would be very proud of her little girl for, above all, finally getting her first full time job at the age of 51.
But, the entitled appointment to the Senate that Caroline wants gift-wrapped and hand-delivered to her…well, that’s something we can’t imagine Jackie being very proud of. We bet she’d want all of her throw pillows back, too, and would probably tell Caroline to brush her teeth once in a while if she suddenly wants to be in pictures all of the time.
But, of course, princesses ain’t gotta!
Caroline Kennedy Watch
Because of the terrible snow storm that slammed Chicago on Friday, most of us got stuck in New York and haven’t been able to make it back to Buzzquarters yet. We’re debating taking advantage of the situation to linger here in New York state through the holidays and see if we can attend one of the weird events Caroline Kennedy has been doing here and there to campaign for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat.
Unlike regular political events, Caroline’s just been appearing out of thin air with little notice. She was in Harlem yesterday, but it’s unclear if she intended to be there, or just fell asleep in the limo on her way to Bergdorf’s and got one heck of a surprise when she woke-up.
It would be a fun challenge to see what Caroline’s like in person, and report on what actually goes down at her events, since the media’s unlikely to ever do that.
We’re not promising anything, but will try our best. That’s what we are up to right now in case you were wondering why the posts have been less frequent than normal. HillBuzz is on the road, and on the campaign trail again, it seems.
Princess Caroline Update
Most of us are in New York City this week, far from the comforts of Buzzquarters in Chicago. Since we volunteer back home during the holidays, we get together with family and friends the week before Christmas in New York (and came in a little early to attend the Conversation with Hillary Clinton on Monday…more on that later). Hence, the smaller number of posts from us in the last few days, since we’ve just been so busy here meeting with people.
It is a great time to be in New York because all anyone wants to talk about is Princess Caroline and her desired appointment to the Senate. In a nutshell, consensus is that Princess Caroline will get what Princess Caroline wants, because Kennedys always get what they want. We’ve heard this nonstop every day since Monday.
Princess Caroline wants her first full-time job to be that of United States Senator, and New Yorkers might not like it but see that the fix is in.
Not ALL New Yorkers, though. Last night we went to a Christmas party in a friend’s building — it’s on the upper West Side, in a very expensive building, filled with very talkative and opinionated well-off Democrats (who, unsurprisingly, were mostly Hillary people…though unlike us many of them switched allegiance to Obama after the primaries and traditionally do whatever the party tells them to do). One of the most surprising things we heard consistently at the party was that David Paterson is a loose cannon who does whatever he feels like that day, with little regard for whatever anyone else thinks. One very nice woman named Carole said Paterson consistently rebukes those who tell him what to do because she thinks he “constantly has something to prove psychologically, in that because of his disability he feels pushed around easily”. Carole’s theory is that whenever the political establishments tells him what to do, he feels somewhere inside that they are taking advantage of him because of his blindness, so “I’ll show them!” bubbles up inside him and he darts in the complete opposite direction in which he was supposed to go. Carole, however, believes the Kennedy fix is already in and that the Kennedys have gotten to the labor unions, which will lean on Paterson to do what the Kennedys want. Basically, Carole said the unions would threaten to spike Paterson’s re-election bid if he does not appoint Princess Caroline the way Uncle Ted wants him to.
New York is not a state we know well so all we can tell you is what we’ve been told during our time here. During the Hillary event on Monday, everyone we talked to asked our opinion of Princess Caroline, and it’s consistent with what they think: if Princess Caroline wants to be in politics so badly, she should run for the seat in 2010. Why has she never bothered to run for anything before? And a better question is: if Ted Kennedy wants her in the Senate so badly, why doesn’t Ted step down from his seat because of his illness and order Deval Patrick to appoint Princess Caroline to HIS seat? It is an open secret in the Democratic party that this will be Ted Kennedy’s last Christmas — people who do not usually spend Christmas in Massachusetts are all mysteriously going there this year, with big celebrations centered around Uncle Ted so everyone can pay their respects while they still can. These people would rather be skiing in Vail or sunning on beaches in Hawaii, so the fact that they’re coming to Massachusetts in the dead of winter en masse is telling.
Personally, if it’s a solid argument for someone to have a Senate seat because her father was President and other relatives were in the Senate, then we’d like Chelsea Victoria Clinton appointed to fill her mother’s vacant seat. If you saw Chelsea on the campaign trail, you know she would not only be an effective campaigner in 2010 and 2012, but she’d make an excellent Senator…because she honestly is the very best of her mother and father combined. Hillary Clinton’s done a lot in her life that we admire, but her greatest achievement in our book is raising such an impressive daughter.
We’ve never been impressed by Caroline in that way — and when we call her “Princess Caroline”, it’s not meant as a pejorative, because this is what we’ve always called her as a term of endearment. The Kennedys are America’s royal family, with Jackie as our late Queen and John-John as our gone too soon Prince Charming. These people are fawned and obsessed over on the supermarket shelves the way British tabloids handle the Windsors. Princess Caroline is at her best when wearing the family diamonds, dedicating libraries, representing her parents at state funerals or foreign weddings, and handing out Profiles in Courage medals or other awards at the Kennedy Center. She generates an immensely warm feeling wherever she goes because people who see her instantly think about how much they loved her mother and father (Jackie, especially). That emotional connection is something we’ve always had for Caroline, too, and we freely admit that.
Actually, in the interest of full disclosure, we’ve long wished Caroline Kennedy would step up and run for office herself, and have felt her constant demands for privacy were strange, considering the immense good she could have been doing by using that emotional connection the public has for her to really champion causes the Kennedy brand believes in.
But, instead of actually running for office, in an actual election, Princess Caroline just wants the Senate seat to be handed to her, as is her royal want and privilege. We can’t imagine Jackie Kennedy ever being so gauche and classless. The way she’s handled all of this is so unbecoming, and so deliberately self-serving of the Kennedy family’s best interests, unrelated to what’s good for the people of New York.
But, 95% of the people we’re talking to here in New York City think what Princess Caroline wants, Princess Caroline will get. Tonight we’re going to another Christmas party that should be interesting, as it’s another political crowd who, of course, will be discussing the Senate vacancy in great detail we’re sure. If there’s enough rum in the eggnog, who knows what they’ll spill.
We’d actually like to see Caroline Kennedy run for office in 2010. If she did, there’s a very good chance we’d join her campaign and help her win that seat in her own right. But, we just won’t get on board the Princess Caroline Royal Appointment bandwagon.
That interim Senator should be someone with a proven ability to serve the best interests of the people of New York, not the whims and fancies of America’s royal family.
Don't cry for her, Hyannis Port. Princess Caroline's not getting what she wants.
In case you haven’t figured this out yet, Team Hillary has a list of who supported HRC during the primaries, and who didn’t. That list isn’t going anywhere.
Caroline and Ted Kennedy, Bill Richardson, Claire McCaskill, Kathleen Sebelius, John Kerry…all people on the wrong side of that list, and all people who will ultimately get theirs in the end.
But one thing Caroline won’t be getting is that Senate seat she wants. Not if Team Hillary has anything to say about it (and they do).
Governor Paterson is under increasing daily pressure, some of it quiet and behind the scenes, to tell Ted and Caroline Kennedy to take a much-deserved flying leap. With excellent Senate candidates like Carolyn Maloney and Andrew Cuomo to choose from, Princess Caroline’s sudden desire to hold court in a Senate office and waive to a less than adoring public seems more and more delusional every day.
The Rod Blagojevich business, of which Rahm Emanuel is VERY MUCH INVOLVED, sure doesn’t help Caroline’s chances.
Whomever fills ANY Senate vacancies, in any state, this year is going to be under intense scrutiny now. That appointment needs to be rooted in the best and most rock solid interests of the people of that state, be it Illinois or New York. People like Jesse Jackson Jr., Caroline Kennedy, and Valerie Jarrett are just not going to cut it.
But, don’t cry for Caroline. She’s still “American Royalty”, has a Neil Diamond song inspired by her, and even had her own pony once (every little girl’s dream, before growing up and wanting to play Senator instead of dress-up).
Sorry. The same people who spent so much time attacking Sarah Palin as unqualified (despite winning two mayoral elections and one statewide election to governor in her own right) don’t have a leg to stand on pushing Princess Caroline for a Senate appointment…not when so many non-royal, hardworking, capable people are out there to take over for Hillary Clinton.
And from the looks of things, Team Hillary’s on top of making sure “American royalty” doesn’t win the day on this one.
Since everyone is talking about improper use of influence relating to Senate seats, what about efforts underway to jam Caroline Kennedy into Hillary Clinton's New York seat?
Ted Kennedy claims he and New York Governor David Paterson have never had conversations amounting to Kennedy asking (in that quaint Kennedy way that could be mistaken for red-faced, drunken demanding) Paterson to appoint his niece Caroline to Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat, when Clinton becomes Secretary of State.
Just like Obama claims he and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich have never had any conversations pertaining to Obama’s Senate replacement, either.
Because Democrats never lie.
Especially not Ted Kennedy.
Who is always truthful about everything…
