Unintended Consquences “Unlimited”

Who is really at fault for Caroline Kennedy’s humiliating brush with Governor Paterson? It might be Mayor Bloomberg:

Round one of Kennedy’s media blitz went well — a December 26 Associated Press interview followed by an appearance on NY1’s Inside City Hall. But the mood changed quickly the next morning. Kennedy walked into a reserved back room of the Lenox Hill Grill, on Lexington near 78th, and sat down with two reporters from the Times. She’d earnestly studied briefing papers on issues like immigration, the economy, education, and gay rights, and she’d been tutored by Ranny Cooper, a PR executive and former aide to Ted Kennedy. Instead, she was greeted with a series of questions on her motivations for wanting to be a senator — and soon became rattled and annoyed, her responses riddled with you knows and ums, which the Times, devastatingly, included in a transcript of the interview. Some of Kennedy’s relatives blamed Isay for not being tougher in readying Caroline for the interview.

Kennedy also smacked headlong into a newly emboldened Times city staff. “We’ve grown a pair of balls, and I’m amazingly proud of the paper,” says a Times reporter. “The turning point was the editorial page’s rolling over for Bloomberg on erasing term limits. The reaction from the reporters and editors is that we’re the last line of defense — we’ve got to hold the line.” Not for or against any particular politician, that is, but to stand up for small-d democracy. After inflating her candidacy by making her simple declaration of interest in the job the lead story of the day, they compensated by hitting her hard.