Democrats were quick to decry Gov. Charlie Crist’s appointment of former top aide George LeMieux to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy as cronyism. But this The New York Times politics blog post argues that Crist appointing LeMieux as a placeholder while he runs for the seat in 2010 isn’t much different from the Kennedy family arranging for Benjamin A. Smith II to keep John F. Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat warm until Ted Kennedy was old enough to run for it in 1962.

A more recent parallel, writer Peter Baker notes, is this year’s appointment of Vice President Joe Biden’s former Senate chief of staff, Ted Kaufman, to hold Biden’s Delaware Senate while the VP’s son, Beau Biden, is expected to run for it next year.

As noted here previously, Palm Beach County Democrats have dumped politically incorrect 19th century presidents Thomas Jefferson (slaveowner) and Andrew Jackson (slave-owning Indian relocator) from their annual fund-raising dinner, tentatively changing the Jefferson-Jackson dinner to a Truman-Johnson event.

Since going public with those plans, county Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel says party leaders have been lobbied by supporters of John F. Kennedy and will probably add the slain 35th president’s name, making it a Truman-Kennedy-Johnson dinner.

The event isn’t until November, so there’s probably time for more lobbying. Adding Jimmy Carter would make a complete roster of Democratic presidents from the Cold War. Watch this space to see if any other candidates emerge…..