Uh. David Paterson was going to appoint Caroline Kennedy to the Senate tomorrow, or this weekend, but now he can't, because she dropped out of the "race."

This is according to The New York Post which cites no one at all, and sometimes Post exclusives are from fantasyland, but hey, this is what they say:

Caroline Kennedy has told Gov. Paterson that she is withdrawing her name from consideration to replace Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate, The Post has learned.

Kennedy cited "personal reasons," according to sources.

Caroline was the last, best hope for the Kennedy family, which has had members in the Senate since Jack was elected in 1952. Following him: RFK and Ted joined the Senate, both of them with presidential dreams that didn't materialize (because of Bobby's assassination and Teddy's being not as beloved as Bobby and Jack).

So now what? Ted won't be a Senator for too much longer—as his ten-minute seizure at the Inauguration morbidly demonstrated, he can't keep it up forever. Patrick J. Kennedy is a congressman from Rhode Island—he's also a famous drunk and pill-popper with a recent "impaired driving incident" that made him a national joke. Well, Ted survived Chappaquiddick, but maybe Patrick's not so lucky. (It is Rhode Island, though. So you never know.)

So unless the people of Rhode Island decide to promote Pat or, god forbid, Robert Kennedy Jr starts campaigning now, Caroline's dropping out means the Senate has run out of Kennedys.

Somewhere in corrupt political fixer heaven, Joe Kennedy is pissed.

(And it looks like the New York Times has confirmed.)