What qualifies Caroline Kennedy to be a Senator? Well she wrote some books. Books such as A Family Christmas, featuring songs, poems and other things written by other people she liked, and got to publish as her own collection with a high advance because she’s a Kennedy. And then there’s A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children, which is filled with, you guessed it, poems Caroline Kennedy liked that other people wrote and got to publish in a collection. And then there’s A Patriot’s Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories, and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love, I think you can guess what this one is. That’s right, songs, poems and stuff that Caroline Kennedy read and liked, and got to publish cause she’s a Kennedy.

Ah but you want her serious books, well there’s Profiles In Courage For Our Time, a collection of, yes, and in no way does that trade in on her father’s name. Not at all. His famous book by the same name doesn’t at all relate to that. But you want her Constitutional law books? There’s In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights In Action, which is long since out of print and was co-authored with an actual working lawyer. Finally there’s The Right to Privacy, high on the sensationalistic factor and low on actual legal cred, again co-authored with an actual working lawyer, Ellen Alderman. The particularly odd thing you notice is that Caroline Kennedy keeps co-authoring even law school journal articles with Ellen Alderman. Her own work shows that Ellen Alderman can author her own stuff, but on her own her material wouldn’t have the fame that comes from stamping Caroline Kennedy’s name on the cover. But if her books on Constitutional Law are what give Caroline Kennedy a claim to being a Senator, shouldn’t Ellen Alderman also be up for the job?

Oh wait, I forgot. Ellen Alderman may have written the books that Caroline Kennedy takes credit for (And I don’t mean A Family Christmas) but her last name isn’t Kennedy. Too bad.