A Kennedy in London?

By Jennifer J. Foster

Published: August 21, 2008

No one seems to be able to get a good bead on Barack Obama’s running mate, but one man says he’s been able to divine—from across the pond—whom Obama will choose as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Tim Walker of the U.K. Telegraph writes for his Mandrake column that his sources (anonymous, of course) tell him that Obama will tap Caroline Kennedy for the post; she would be following in the footsteps of her grandfather, Joe Kennedy, who served in the Court of St. James from 1938 to 1940.

The ambassadorship would be payback, Walker writes, for Caroline Kennedy’s enthusiastic support of Obama’s campaign and for her ability to secure the endorsement of her uncle, U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, for Obama.

Most ambassadorships are political payback. They are gifts to allies of political victors for the loyal service—and, many times, financial support—of their backers. But an ambassadorship to, say, the Bahamas is different than one to a major U.S. ally like the U.K.

I’m not saying Caroline Kennedy isn’t qualified. She may be. For the sake of our relationships with the U.K., Europe, NATO and other key diplomatic players, I hope that if Obama is elected, she has better diplomatic bearings than her grandfather: He argued during the early stages or World War II against giving aid to Britain because, as he famously said in the Boston Sunday Globe in November 1940, “Democracy is finished in England. It may be here.“

Even as he was seeking an audience with Adolf Hitler against the wishes of Winston Churchill, Joe Kennedy also demonstrated the attitude described by fans of the family dynasty as self-confidence but decried by its detractors as arrogance: “I know more about the European situation than anybody else, and it’s up to me to see that the country gets it,“ he said.

On another note, where did Walker get this information? If it came from an Obama campaign staffer or adviser, it would signal troubling entanglements between politics and future policy in an Obama administration. If it came from Kennedy herself, it would mean that Obama and/or his assistants have already made representations and/or assurances to her that she has the position locked up, and that would signal a shortsightedness in Obama’s willingness to appoint the right people based on circumstances and the political climate at the time of the appointment.

One final thing: Caroline Kennedy is one of two people coordinating (or, more appropriately, who have coordinated) Barack Obama’s search for a vice presidential nominee. That search, and its results, have been among the best-kept secrets in recent political memory.

What does it mean that the VP news has been held so close to the vest, but the ambassadorship story, of which Caroline Kennedy is the subject, made it into a gossip blog of a newspaper on the other side of the Atlantic?