Sweet on Caroline

By MAUREEN DOWD
NYT

WASHINGTON

Ask not, you know, what your country can, like, do for you. Ask what you, um, can, you know, do for your country.

After a lifetime of shying away from the public spotlight, Caroline Kennedy asked herself what she could do for her country.

Her soft-spoken answer — to follow her father and two uncles and serve in the Senate — got her ripped to shreds in the, you know, press.

I know about “you knows.” I use that verbal crutch myself, a bad habit that develops from shyness and reticence about public speaking.

I always thought that Caroline and her brother, John, had special magic capital in America because of their heartbreaking roles in the Kennedy House of Atreus.

(More here.)