Today I made a new entry on my Schadenfreude list: Ted Kennedy. That of course, includes Caroline and her friend MoDo, but just to keep it simple.

The latest episode has Ted upset with Caroline

Sources close to Senator Edward M. Kennedy tell TIME that his circle is furious that his brain cancer has been cited by some in her camp as the reason for her decision to withdraw her name from consideration for the Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton in New York.

“It looks horrible,” says a former aide to Ted Kennedy. “It makes him look like he is at death’s door.”

I agree it looks terrible. Mostly because when we were hit with the headline

TED WANTS CAROLINE

there was serious banking on sympathy for Ted’s ailment, already public this summer.

So far, Ted’s gambit for control of the party hit the skids.

It was flying high when he pushed Kerry in 2004. It became shameless when he endorsed Obama in 2008, over the woman who campaigned for him (Bill Clinton put all his presidential weight behind him in an election he was about to lose). Not the endorsement so much as the vicious attacks with accusations of racism.

And then, as if this was not enough, Ted made it impossible for Hillary to remain in the senate in what I think was a long term plan of reclaiming NY for the family.

So, now he managed to embarrass said family by exposing one of its weak link and it’s all blowing back on him.

As an aside, I had a feeling this would be the outcome when Bloomberg invited the Clintons at the New Year’s apple falling ceremony on New Year’s Eve.

Bloomberg cynically hitched his political wagon to Obama way before anyone else by threatening to form a third party if Obama is not nominated a year ago. So, his courting the Clintons was significant – considering that  he was Caroline’s biggest champion up to that point.

The fact that he now goes on talk shows gushing about Hillary settles the question of power turf in NY – and in a way that makes me happy.