Of all people, I thought of my late mother while watching the extraordinary video of Caroline Kennedy’s harsh criticism of her cousin, RFK Jr., on the eve of his confirmation hearing as Health and Human Services secretary. The NYT gets it right: Her opposition to RFK’s cabinet appointment seems to go beyond professional and personal objections. It’s also about the “battle over who gets to claim the mantle of the Kennedys.” … But my late mother, who loved following all-things Kennedys and who had that incredible Irish knack of sensing class and cultural divides, would have taken the analysis further, pointing out, as she did to me on numerous occasions over the years, how Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, after the assassination of her husband, raised Caroline and John F. Kennedy Jr. slightly apart from the rest of the Kennedy family. It seemed as if Jacqueline was shielding her children from the excesses of the rest of the Kennedy clan, my mother used to say. …

Then came Caroline’s harsh words yesterday about RFK Jr.’s alleged animal cruelty (yes, the blender part) and how as a youth he “encouraged” siblings and cousins “down the path of substance abuse” and ultimately to “addiction, illness and death,” etc.  … And the NYT does bring up JFK Jr.’s  once biting remark about his cousins being “poster boys for bad behavior,” etc., etc. … The Bouvier-Kennedy divide. There it is.