Resurrecting Camelot

Sen. Edward Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama pushed Bill and Hillary Clinton into the past, said David Brooks in The New York Times, by handing Obama the torch once carried by John F. Kennedy. Trotting out "remnants of America's once-upon-a-time

What happened

Barack Obama launched a campaign push ahead of next week’s Super Tuesday presidential primaries armed with endorsements from Sen. Edward Kennedy and several other influential Democrats. Obama advisers said the Illinois senator is hoping that the nod from Kennedy and his niece Caroline Kennedy—who said Obama reminded her of her father, John F. Kennedy—will help him rival Hillary Clinton’s arsenal of support from the party’s establishment. (The Wall Street Journal)

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

“Kennedy declared Obama to be nothing less than his brother's rightful heir,” said Karen Tumulty in Time.com. With Hillary Clinton leading in all but two of the 22 states that will vote on Super Tuesday, the endorsement gives Obama a boost he needs, “particularly in places, such as the Latino community, where Obama remains an unknown quantity and the Kennedy name still carries enormous emotion.”

It was easy to believe in JFK’s Camelot 48 years ago, said the New York Post in an editorial (free registration). But trotting out “venerable remnants of America’s once-upon-a-time royal family” can’t undo the “time and truth” that have “tattered” the Kennedy myth. JFK “led a nation more or less at peace into the Vietnam War,” and Teddy Kennedy, who was first elected to the Senate in 1962, was “a bitter opponent” of welfare reform, the “most refreshing” policy shift of the 1990s. These are agents of change? Sorry. “Camelot died a long time ago.”