(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that's happening with country music artists behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.)

"I hope so." That's what Ethel Kennedy said when the Boston Herald asked her if she thought Taylor Swift might marry into the family someday. Then, she said it again when they asked Kennedy if Swift had truly bought a house across the street from her in Hyannis Port, Mass. "I hope so," she said. It makes you wonder if the Kennedy matriarch (and grandmother to Swift's boyfriend Conor) would have said those three little words in response to anything. It's pretty genius media training, if you think about it. It's noncommittal. It's upbeat and positive. It's opinion instead of fact. So it's perfectly vague -- and yet so telling. The interview with Kennedy took place on the red carpet of the recent JFK Library premiere of her daughter Rory's HBO documentary, Ethel. Swift wasn't there, but I'm guessing that if someone had asked Kennedy if the country superstar would be at the next family event, she'd say it again: "I hope so."