In which a conservative, Murdoch-owned paper peers into New York City’s talent pool and decides we can’t do better than a relic of Camelot. Disgraceful.

Gov. Paterson would be well-advised to select Kennedy as New York’s next junior senator…

Consider her unusually high profile: As the only surviving child of President John Kennedy, she’d enter the Senate with considerably more political clout than the average freshman…

As a member of Barack Obama’s vice presidential selection committee – and a key early endorser of his candidacy – she remains close to the president-elect. That kind of access and influence surely would prove critical for New York.

Moreover, Kennedy’s selection would be a welcome sign of Paterson’s willingness to reject the politics of pander and special-interest pressures merely to satisfy some ethnic or geographic quota.

Yes indeed, appointing Caroline because she’s a Kennedy is a great leap forward from appointing a qualified woman or minority candidate in the interests of identity politics. As for that “unusually high profile” and the extra clout it supposedly brings, just ask Hillary, who took the job at State partly because she was going nowhere in the Senate despite worldwide fame and 18 million votes in the primary. The one good argument, which I made myself yesterday, is that Caroline’s an Obama crony and can count on quid pro quo from the White House for voting the way The One wants; if that’s how New Yorkers want to play it, trading qualifications for pork, that’s fine, but it’s as near as I can conceive to selling Obama the seat without going the full Blago route. What it really amounts to is an argument for electing pro-Obama celebrities — which is precisely what Caroline is. Says NBC:

On the policy front, the pitch is this: No one else Paterson could appoint will have as much bully pulpit access as Caroline. She may be 100th in seniority when she arrives, but no one will be able to get more reporters to show up to a press conference. On the political front, the pitch is simple: There are two races in two years for this seat, and isn’t it better to appoint someone who can raise the big money necessary to scare off the GOP?

Fair points — both of which could also be made in support of, oh, say, Chris Rock. He’s an Obama supporter, fully capable of financing a campaign, and his pressers would be more entertaining (and probably better attended) than Caroline’s. Rock for Senate!

Word on the street is that Paterson’s warming to the idea of picking Caroline and Hillary’s telling her diehards not to stand in the way, so this travesty really may be in the offing. Exit question: Why would the New York Post, of all papers, jump on the Kennedy bandwagon? Or did I stumble onto the answer in the previous sentence?