It’s worth noting that many of the liberal critics who cited Sarah Palin’s lack of experience as the numero uno reason for her being unfit for the vice presidency (a criticism that I shared) have voiced similar concern in their opposition to Caroline Kennedy’s ascension to Hillary Clinton’s soon-to-be vacant New York Senate seat. (It’s also worth noting that prominent among Kennedy’s defenders is Kathleen Parker, whom someone should tell that the 15 minutes of fame that came via her conservative apostate meal ticket ended a month and a half ago.) While the Left’s criticisms of the impending Kennedy coronation haven’t been nearly as vitriolic or crass as the slanders they leveled at Palin (about which Jonah Goldberg reminds us), one has to at least give some credit where credit is due.

Joe Conason, however, is not one of those honest liberal writers. His most recent column, “The Manner of Caroline’s Qualifications,” is the mirror image of what the more dogmatic conservative defenders of Sarah Palin composed during the presidential election, and is utterly without irony (that it appears in the New York Observer, an influential publication in Kennedy’s state, renders his argument somewhat more relevant). Recalling Kennedy’s “political debut” 10 years ago at a New York University “teach-in” against the impeachment of then-president Clinton, Conason recalls that “her presence electrified what would otherwise have been a mundane gathering of liberal intellectuals, professors and politicians.” Sound at all similar to the way conservatives described Palin’s performance at the otherwise dull Republican National Convention, and used that performance — not irrationally — as justification for her presence on the ticket?

After the standard issue panting that’s required of some liberals when they write about the Kennedys, Conason moves on to the meat of his argument, that is, the question of whether Kennedy is “qualified” to be the next Senator for New York. First among these concerns for Conason, a partisan Democrat, is not her public policy views or experience (the very things that critics of Palin mentioned when arguing against her qualifications), but rather Kennedy’s ability to raise money. And boy, can she do that. “She has demonstrated considerable prowess in raising funds for education, ballet and other causes,” Conason states. And, presumably, she’ll be able to raise a lot of money for other Democratic pols as well. Does prioritizing a candidate’s ability to raise money as reason for their political advancement ring a bell?

As for the more serious considerations, well, Conason does address them but dons kid gloves. We’re told that Kennedy “has never tested herself in the brutal arena of electoral politics” and that “she has lived in a world of privilege quite remote from the concerns of most voters.” That’s putting it lightly. Did Conason give Palin any credit for living a far less charmed life than Kennedy and accomplishing more with it, having won the Governorship of Alaska, smashing the closest thing that state had to a Kennedy dynasty to achieve it, and securing an 80% approval rating therein? Take a wild guess. “Suddenly all anyone needs to qualify as a potential commander in chief is to be a religious ideologue with female gender characteristics?” he snarked the day after Palin’s selection was announced.

Of course, being vice president is not the same thing as being a Senator. The former is just a heartbeat away from the presidency, and the debate over the validity of John McCain’s selection of Palin understandably stoked more passion — both pro and con — due to the greater significance of the office in question. But as evidenced by the bipartisan disgust at what’s going on in New York politics right now, one doesn’t need to be a conservative or harbor a special loathing of the Kennedy clan to find this spectacle outrageous.

With the Kennedys, of course, the rules have never applied. Nothing unseemly (or even illegal) they do could ever seriously tarnish the legacy of noblesse oblige that liberals have scripted for them. “The same criticism — that she’s only where she is because of her name — was leveled at her uncle Ted when he first ran for the Senate,” Conason reassures his readers. “Then again, we know how he turned out.” Something tells me Conason isn’t referring to Chappaquiddick.