While few polit­i­cal respon­si­bil­i­ties strike me as abso­lutist and unde­mo­c­ra­tic as that of a gov­er­nor appoint­ing a U.S. Sen­a­tor to office in the case of a vacant Senate seat, the rank process has smelt to heaven in all three post-​election situations.

Little more needs to be said on Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat after Bobby’s Cliff­s­Notes ver­sion of the filed crim­i­nal com­plaint against Blago. Might I just point out that Illi­nois res­i­dents knew the score before the latest shock twist: Ras­mussen had Blago’s approval rating in an Octo­ber 13 poll at 4%. Yes, 4%.  A greater per­cent­age of a random sample of people believe that the sun revolves around the earth than approve of the job that Blago is doing in the Spring­field state house.

But the other two seats in play, VP-​Elect Joe Biden’s Senate seat in Delaware and Secretary-of-State-designate Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat in New York, are falling prey to the other kind of cor­rup­tion, i.e., the soft crony­ism of nepotism.

Edward Kauf­man (no rela­tion to Char­lie and Donald) was appointed to Joe Biden’s Senate seat in late Novem­ber to occupy it for two years. Kauf­man has been Biden’s Chief of Staff for 19 years, no politi­cian indeed but a place­holder. Osten­si­bly, this moves sets up Joe’s son Beau Biden, former Delaware Attor­ney Gen­eral, now JAG Corps offi­cer deployed to Iraq, to run for his father’s seat in 2010.

And yes, the vacant Hillary Rodham Clin­ton seat in New York has been the sub­ject of nepo­tis­tic spec­u­la­tion with the chance that Andrew Cuomo or Car­o­line Kennedy might fall into the Senate, Kennedy per­haps more likely because of her gender (though Hillary sup­port­ers appar­ently won’t for­give her early Obama endorse­ment and would rise up en masse in that eventuality).

I under­stand the notion of con­sid­er­ing some­one who at least has been ensconced in national pol­i­tics for a life­time, and of course there’s the attrac­tion of name recog­ni­tion for elec­tion season, but can we stop this ludi­crous dynasty-​making already? I’m with Eve Fair­banks, Jane Hamsher and Glenn Green­wald.  Aside from what they’ve already noted, I’d just com­ment on the immense hypocrisy of the dis­cus­sion con­cern­ing Kennedy and her per­ceived chal­lengers for consideration.

“Countdown with Keith Olbermann” last week fea­tured Bloomberg colum­nist Mar­garet Carl­son, who lamented the fact that she had to shelve a Car­o­line Kennedy fanboy letter to cover Gov. Blago’s pot­ty­mouth antics in her column.  But Carlson’s duty it was on the show to parrot Olbermann’s thinly-​veiled chau­vin­is­tic con­de­scen­sion over the news that another New Yorker had expressed inter­est in the seat: 90s TV per­son­al­ity Fran Drescher. Quoth Carl­son, trying to keep up with Olbermann’s log­or­rhea of one-​liners, “I think she’d do better off on “Wife Swap” or “The Nanny,” on ABC.”  Carl­son gushes over Car­o­line Kennedy’s polit­i­cal attributes:

Well, a lot of people get their first public office in the senate in the way it works. Some people buy it. Some people are celebri­ties and Car­o­line Kennedy is a com­bi­na­tion of a couple of things. She has writ­ten six books. She is a con­sti­tu­tional scholar; she is a Kennedy so she’s been in the world of pol­i­tics all her life even though in the background.

She seems to have come out-​you know, most of what I saw Car­o­line Kennedy she was in mourn­ing. Then she comes out as a polit­i­cal figure during the Obama race and she han­dles her­self very well. And I believe her when she says this was the first time that she was inspired by an actual can­di­date since her father.

So I don’t think it would be all that bad. By the way in 2010 she’ll be able to raise the money to launch her own race, which I don’t think Fran Drescher would be able to do.

Hrmm. Books, law degree, name, good speech, and money. Bingo!

Drescher no doubt isn’t the most qual­i­fied can­di­date for New York Senate. But nei­ther is Car­o­line Kennedy. Let’s be fair: both have led com­mend­able public ser­vice efforts, Drescher as a U.S. State Depart­ment envoy to east­ern Europe and a women’s health advo­cate and Kennedy doing what­ever it is that Kennedys do.  And both are surely good people.  But let’s also try not to forget that the woman vacat­ing the seat did more to advance the cause of her gender in pres­i­den­tial elec­toral pol­i­tics than pos­si­bly anyone in Amer­i­can his­tory (sure, partly by exploit­ing her own famil­ial connections).  This bizarre elec­tion also gave us the best exam­ple of the sexism of tokenism, when Sarah Palin was chosen for a VP slot for which she had absolutely zero prepa­ra­tion. Do we respond to these fresh events with mysog­y­nis­tic snark­ing about one inex­pe­ri­enced can­di­date and clam­ors for appoint­ing another inex­pe­ri­enced can­di­date to office just because she’s a Kennedy?

Pat­ter­son ought instead to avoid the inevitable outcry over either of those women by select­ing the only woman with a direct claim to the seat: Chelsea Clin­ton, of course.