CNN's failing and flailing Parker Spitzer show ended Friday night with the supposedly (at least slightly) differing hosts joining in a round of Hosannas for the Kennedys, making the common error that there's been a Kennedy serving on Capitol Hill for 53 years straight. Wrong. There was a hole from 1960 to 1962, while Ben Smith warmed JFK's seat for Teddy.)
Kathleen Parker thinks Palin's too dumb for national office, but all the copy editors at CNN couldn't Google the Kennedys to get these facts straight. Parker lamented how the Kennedys were giving way to lesser, more regressive political families like Ron and Rand Paul:
SPITZER: Time for "P.S.," our postscript. Today marked the end of an era as Rhode Island congressman Patrick Kennedy, Teddy's youngest son, packed his bags, the last Kennedy still in office in Washington, D.C.
PARKER: It seems unimaginable. Since 1947, when John F. Kennedy became a congressman at age 29, there has always been a Kennedy serving on Capitol Hill.
SPITZER: It's not just their political dynasty that seems to be ending but also what they stood for. Remember when Teddy and the rest of the clan so memorably endorsed Obama as the inheritor to their legacy? Take a look.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: But he also has an uncommon capacity to appeal to the better angels of our nature. I'm proud to stand with him here today and offer my help, offer my voice, offer my energy, my commitment to make Barack Obama the next president of the United States!
CAROLINE KENNEDY, DAUGHTER OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY: I have never had someone inspire me the way people tell me my father inspired them. But I do now, Barack Obama!
The alleged conservative Kathleen Parker hailed these liberal noblemen of great wealth and their conscience (when they weren't sleeping around or leaving women to drown in an automobile), and Spitzer decried that the liberals are all craven capitulators now that this "royal" family has stepped down:
PARKER: Even though the Kennedy dynasty started with money, lots of money, they were rich people with a conscience, and they cared about public service, as well as helping those less privileged.
JOHN F. KENNEDY, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
SEN. ROBERT F. KENNEDY: What we need in the United States is not division. What we need in the United States is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another, healing of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.
SPITZER: All of those just unbelievable political moments. It's sadly fitting then that Patrick packed his bags on a day when the president, President Obama that is, sat next to Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, and capitulated to the wealthy on tax cuts.
PARKER: As Norm Ornstein points out in today's "New York Times," to go from the Kennedys to the Pauls -- that's a pretty big difference.
SPITZER: Indeed, it is. Thanks so much for being with us tonight.
