Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Heir Presumptive… Joseph P. Kennedy III, we have been impatiently awaiting you.

Author’s program note. When the White Hope of a great dynasty reveals himself and his intentions, it is only fitting that this moment of significance be marked and marked well. Thus, gentles all, I give you Sir William Walton’s stirring prelude to the 1944 film of Shakespeare’s Henry V. It is everything such music about such a king and his great deeds should be: audacious to a degree, soaring, stirring to the depth of your soul.. It’s the kind of music that great sovereigns must have…. but cannot always summon; the necessary genius of such music not at hand.
But that genius and his talents are here now… go now to any search engine to find this music. It delivers just the right mood of challenge, courage, grandiloquence, and awe that this tale and its subject deserve — and which I aim to tell in this way:
“O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!”
(Prologue to Henry V).
I am that Muse of fire…
A state that grew too slow, a House seat lost, a petulant miscalculation, an opening seized.
Every ten years, by law and custom, we the people must be counted and counted carefully, for the great things of the Great Republic, including who will get and who will lose seats in the House of Representatives, are fully determined by this census. And once the census is taken its immutable dictates go out to the several states which have either lost population, seats, and influence, or gained them. And this census stripped Massachusetts of yet another seat… and inaugurated a deadly game of musical chairs amongst the current Congressmen as to who would stay and who would go. And the legislature (which controls the size and contortions of each district) degreed that Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) would be handed the fight of his political life; that he would have to fight and fight hard, with absolutely no guarantee of victory, to retain his place amongst the Solons of the nation.
And so this 16-term Congressman, grown puissant and corpulent in office, a man whose every lightning-fast quip offended someone of consequence who awaited the opportunity to revenge, this man, the man who thought himself too good, too powerful, too venerable to suffer the indignity of campaigning and meeting the people, disdained his high office, thereby opening the way for the Heir Presumptive of The Legacy and a lifetime of regret for himself.
The Plantagenets at 83 Beals Street, Brookline, Massachusetts.
You will never understand the Kennedys (who neither disclaim nor deprecate their designation as America’s dynasty), until you see them at 83 Beals Street, where John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in 1917; for it was here that Patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy and his adamant wife transformed a mere family, Irish at that, into a gifted and determined cadre trained to seize a great nation and rearrange its history to their eternal benefit.
… Just as another ambitious family planned, plotted and persevered. These were the Plantagenets of the 12th century and of England; they are the truest dynastic comparison for the Kennedys; not the timid souls of the House of Windsor who can only imagine the glamor and significance of these royal princes, for they will never have either.
The Plantangents had everything great dynasts and their dynasties must have to rise and prosper. They had grit, personal magnetism and charisma, great ideas, a deft hand at murder and chastisement, and a fortitude and grace that are the very definition of royalty.
These Plantagents, from Geoffrey of Anjou (d. 1151), used their undeniable talents and insistence, catapulted themselves to power and glory, using every stratagem, every while, every expedient, cruel and refined. And so unwittingly not only defined themselves but the Kennedys, too; for every Kennedy knows the power of History… and gladly does what it takes therein to cement their unassailable position… whatever the cost, the inconvenience, or laborious tergiversations.
And now, thanks to the petulance of soon-to-be-ex-Congressman Frank, and the practised and exquisite timing of the Family Kennedy and their now hopeful and expectant again adherents, Beals Street and its environs will again be part of their patrimony, thanks to young Joseph P. Kennedy III, for with such a name as his calling card, can there be anything other than invigoration, restoration, renaissance at hand?
Meet Joseph P. Kennedy III, Heir Presumptive.
To understand the optimism and even joy with which this hitherto virtually unknown man has been lately received you must know this: for 64 years, until the somewhat clouded retirement of U.S. Representative Patrick J. Kennedy (D-Rhode Island), son of Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), there had always been a Kennedy in the federal legislature; each one a household name.
When that ended in 2010, there was a sense that this storied family had reached its conclusion, not with a bang but a whimper. But this conclusion, it appears, was premature. For developing in the wings was… the next chapter of this family and its tale that has never ceased to rivet the nation…
But now this tale has every sense of continuing, yea verily even unto the fourth generation. For now young Kennedy (31 years old) is “exploring”, letting the people know he is inclined to run, but not yet quite ready to say so. However the Kennedys are expert at the business of enticement, inciting expectations and anticipations; they want the people to embrace this lad, who constitutes their next best chance to regain federal office and re-ignite the flame of destiny…
Some facts.
Joseph P. Kennedy III was born July 3, 1980 and was handed his destiny along with his name, The Name that firmly marked him as a consequential Personage; a prince in readiness for the good of Family and the Great Republic. Implicit in The Name is this: great grandson of The Patriarch himself, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy; grandson of Robert Kennedy; son of ex-Congressman Joseph Kennedy. And that’s just the direct line. There are cousins, aunts, uncles of renown… Names themselves, ensconced in History, each desiring restoration; for only with restoration will they fulfill their own destinies, enhance their names, burnish their futures and ensure their immortality.
Thus you can be sure the reshaped Fourth Congressional District will see, as soon as the all-important announcement is made, an infusion of energetic, toothsome, photogenic Kennedys, certain to enchant, delight and capture hearts…. for these Kennedys are past masters at such seductive, vote-snagging techniques and are now refreshing them in honor of the Heir Presumptive on whom perforce their own futures rest.
All that stands between this man and radiant future are the people of Newton, Brookline, Fall River and all the other towns and cities of the reshaped Fourth Congressional District. The man, the Kennedys, the dynasty itself are in their hands, to do with as they wish. But they, too, have been awaiting the next installment of this great story, and to get it must welcome the man, who with his celebrated name, can provide it. So far these people are curious about what’s happening, ready in their dull purlieus to be touched by the Kennedy magic. And this is enough for today, for after all just a few hours ago not one of these people knew of Joseph P. Kennedy III or could point him out in a police line-up. Now, already, things are different, primed for success, as they always are when Kennedys stride the stage…
*** What do you think? Submit your comments below.

‘Hey, look me over’ as two-timin’ Newt stops Romney’s coronation coach in South Carolina.

Author’s program note. There can be only one song peppy enough, bouncy enough, irresistible enough, a song that is the very essence of what is best about America… that we get hit and hit again and hit again… yet get up, dust ourselves off and do what’s necessary to win, thank you very much.
That song is “Hey, look me over,” from the 1960 musical “Wildcat” (book by Richard Nash; lyrics by Caroline Leigh; music by Cy Coleman); and it fits the mood today at the headquarters of Newt Gingrich, the man who squeezed the bitter lemon of his contorted and messy relations with women into a lemonade sweet enough even the good Christian folk could drink by the gallon.
Thus, go to any search engine now. Find this tune and play it loud and proud… For, in the final analysis, we love the people Teddy Roosevelt described as “the man in the arena,” the people who have to win because losing is unthinkable. Even if we have to hold our noses when we get too close, we just can’t help admiring them, getting off our posteriors and cheering them to the echo. And the GOP citizens of South Carolina did just that.
They decided to vote for an idea… the idea that it is “we, the people” who make presidents… not pollsters, not handlers, not pundits and prognosticators… and if you don’t like it, that’s your problem. Not theirs. Thus did Romney get his gourmet, tax- deductible lunch handed to him… his contrived designer jeans ripped, torn, muddy, and a black eye to boot. This doesn’t mean he won’t be nominated, but it most assuredly means he will not be, cannot be nominated the way he’s gone about the job so far. South Carolina has dictated that if nothing more.
Prize day.
To sketch this influential event in a way that even third-graders could understand, consider this: Mitt Romney is the school kid we all hated; hated with our heart, soul and brain, for we knew — and could see evidence every single day, every day he raised his hand and knew the answer — that he was the kid the teachers idolized, the one they could with abiding pride point to and say, “That’s our boy.” Whereupon the boy would beam… and our hatred would grow… and we’d dream delicious ways of taking him down a peg or two… the faster, the sooner, the most abashing, the better.
Then one day one of the kids couldn’t take it take it anymore… and he pops, goes nuts. It’s the day school prizes are awarded; Mitt getting the lion’s share. It was the day something must be done… the time for mere rage gone; the need for action this day nigh.
Thus does this kid (call him Newt) see picture-perfect, not-a-hair-out-of-place Mitt coming to school in his chauffeur driven car and goes postal; he decides enough is enough… that Mitt (whose very name he abominates and loathes) must be taken out… but without of course implicating himself. Thus with a “sorry, man” at the ready scruffy, incorrigible Newt maneuvers Mitt into the nearest, stinkiest, festering mud, thereby rendering the apple of every teacher’s eye an unholy mess when he walks into class…
How much sympathy does ol’ Mitt get, for all that he’s the victim? None, absolutely none at all… and they elect Newt Student Body President in a landslide… because, because… Mitt makes them sick, every last one of them.
And, friends, this is what happened yesterday in South Carolina… the state oh-so- clearly indicated that they want candidates who fight for their favors, including the ultimate favor of getting to whack on their behalf, the man each and every one of them despises… Barack Obama, president of the Great Republic… for make no mistake about it, the fractured, snarling, uncooperative members of the Grand Old Party want brother Barack’s head on a platter… this is and has been since Inauguration Day 2009, their first and preeminent desire.
And they aren’t convinced Mitt can bring home the bacon… stinging the incumbent, slashing the incumbent, wounding the incumbent, humiliating the incumbent, for that’s what they insist their candidate deliver… like Salome with the head of John the Baptist, a reference every Evangelical knows and savors.
So, what has the great Palmetto State, home of nullifier John C. Calhoun and war profiteer Rhett Butler, the state that lobbed the first treasonable shot, thereby launching a war anything but civil, what has this state said?
First, that the Romney Coronation is off. That the carefully contrived, minutely controlled candidacy of Massachusetts’ least popular governor has ended. Mitt is going to have to do what Mitt hates: engaging in a bare-knuckles brawl that must show the GOP he is their boy; a man who can deliver the red-meat the much challenged and riven party craves. For these folks, rabid revolutionaries all and Constitution-hugging patriots as they are, are not about to go gentle into this good-night; they insist upon a candidate who can turn their white hot rage about the wrongful direction of the Great Republic into a lifetime lock on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the nation’s agenda.
They look at Mitt and want to puke… What kind of American is he, they wonder, who wants the most precious of their gifts, their vote for president; but who, they feel in their gut, not only does not like or understand them, but faces them with incomprehension and even disdain? They know that a dinner-party with Mitt and his dutiful, adoring wife (a role model impossible for today’s woman) would be proper, dull, an unhappy memory for all… for all that Mitt might say just the right things with gestures approved by his stable of handlers.
And so while Republican hosts may yet dine with this stiff, control freak and paragon, they are afraid, and rightly so, that there won’t be any pleasure in it, no fun, no grandiose joys and memories; worst of all, no White House.
And this is why the GOP has gone through the long, exhaustive, often abjectly humiliating process of vetting one potential presidential nominee after another, all ardently desired and even adored at the outset; all found wanting and disquieting in so very many ways.
Will these folks be happy with Newt, his many wives, his inexplicable financial arrangements, his blatant self-service and prevarications? Maybe not. But he is serving their purposes right now — forcing Mitt out of his bubble, demanding he get real on why his association with Bain Capital unnerves so many at a time when he has so egregiously mishandled the matter of his tax returns. We all know, and Romney knows we know, that what we will find when he at last makes them public — no evidence of illegality but a text-book case of how the super-wealthy gain and use loop-holes on which they build their empires.
Newt has all of Romney’s many inadequacies going for him… and he has, mirabile dictu, brigades of Southern women for him, too. They already knew that men are lyin’, cheatin’, low-down scoundrels. But now it’s official. Messin’ around with women is no big deal, no sin at all, whatever the Good Book says… just keep our taxes low, hold our Founding Fathers high, make us as special as we see ourselves, and above all love us… something Mitt Romney just cannot do…