I watched Caroline Kennedy on Charlie Rose (PBS) last night. She's edited a book entitled Profiles in Courage for Our Time, a sort of update of her father's famous book. I admire her for working up the "courage" to go on TV to shill for this worthy book, something she's clearly not comfortable with. People inevitably make comparisons, and who would want to be compared to JFK and Jackie O? Even if you have their DNA in every cell of your body, it's impossible to live up to people of mythic stature. (I suppose. How the hell would I know?)

I saw Jackie in Central Park once. She was renting a rowboat to take one of her granddaughters out on the lake. She did not look at all glamorous, dressed as she was: all in black, with the usual big sunglasses and a headscarf that looked like something a third-world peasant would wear. It was an odd, touching moment, one that made me realize she was as "real" as any of us.

....