KENNEDYS BESTOW PROFILE IN COURAGE HONOR TO A SOULMATE

Bulletin:

John F. Kennedy Jr. and sister Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg announced Monday that their second annual "Profiles in Courage" award will be given to Connecticut Gov. Lowell Weicker.

What was Weicker's "profile in courage"? He bucked widespread populist anti-tax sentiment to lead enactment of a first-ever state income tax in Connecticut. Before last year, Connecticut was one of only ten states to have no such levy on incomes.

The message from the Liberal Establishment from our "betters" in America's permanent establishment of political/governing elites is clear:

Any politican willing to fight for a huge, permanent expansion of the power and reach of government will be rewarded with the choicest plums that establishment has to bestow. He'll be eligible for a "Profile in Courage" award. All this awaits anyone willing to go to the mat for bigger, costlier and ever-more intrusive government, at all levels: federal, state and local.

Gov. Weicker was a long-time liberal Republican U.S. senator and congressman. Running in 1990 as an independent, Weicker narrowly won a three-way race for governor of the Nutmeg State. Like many congressional liberals the Kennedys come immediately to mind Weicker is a multi-millionaire who inherited his vast fortune. This inherited wealth from a pharmaceutical empire has freed him to spend his entire adult life running for and holding public office, and prattling on endlessly about this and that.

Over more than 20 years in Congress, the liberal Weicker established a reputation for pomposity and arrogance, in the process proving such a pain in the backside that he became the target of an ouster campaign by the conservative columnist, author and Connecticut resident William F. Buckley Jr.

Buckley's campaign featured bumper strips "Honk if Lowell Weicker makes you sick" and a political action committee called BuckPac, dedicated to ridding the United States Senate of Lowell Weicker. Buckley's 1988 campaign against Weicker found its target. Weicker lost his first election ever, and his seat went to then-Attorney General Joseph Lieberman. Lieberman is a thoughtful and principled Democrat, who has generally made a good record as a freshman senator.

And the Kennedy family is honoring Lowell Weicker, their liberal soulmate, for his service in hiking taxes and permanently expanding government in Connecticut. Just so.

Don't be surprised if the next election finds Connecticut voters saying, "Bring back BuckPAC."