Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Senator Kennedy – Tribute Open Thread

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Senator Kennedy, 1932 to 2009.  I am in mourning.

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  2. Even when you are expecting it, you are no really prepared.  An era is over.  He touched so many people and accomplished so much.  

  4. He will be missed.

    <

    p>Thank you, Senator, for your long and steadfast service.   May you rest in peace.

  5. Gaelic Blessing  
    Sung at a leave-taking.    

    <

    p>Deep Peace of the Running Wave to you.
    Deep Peace of the Flowing Air to you.
    Deep Peace of the Quiet Earth to you.
    Deep Peace of the Shining Stars to you.
    Deep Peace of the Gentle Night to you.
    Moon and Stars pour their Healing Light on you.
    Deep Peace to you.

    <

    p>Rest in Peace, Edward Kennedy

  6. …the voice of the Lion will be with us as we continue to fight the good fight. Thank you for all you did.

  7. I would wish his illness on no one and on no family.  Very sad.  Rest in Peace.

  9. Ted Kennedy was an inspiring.
    He was a lion. May his legacy be continued, and may he rest in peace.
    God Bless

  10. who worked tirelessly for the poor and underserved. There are few such voices in Congress, because serving this constituency, even though it’s the right thing to do, doesn’t get anyone elected.
    Ted Kennedy’s name will always be synonymous with public service.
    This is a terrible loss for everyone who hopes for a more decent world.

  11. Last year when he fell ill, someone was interviewing people at some event I was at (I don’t remember which) asking what we thought of it, and I said I expected Obama to be elected president, which meant Congress would be prodded into finally passing real health care reform, and I was counting on Senator Kennedy to write it.  I really hoped he’d get better in time to do that.

    <

    p>Unfortunately that didn’t happen, and Congress has been writing health care legislation without his formerly tireless bill-drafting and compromise-brokering.

    <

    p>So we have to do the work he’d have done.  We have to be involved in the process, be in contact with our members of Congress, get other people involved, pay attention to the legislation coming out of committees, and make sure something good turns into law.

    • After JFK’s assassination LBJ addressed Congress and said that they should honor the dead President’s legacy by passing a civil rights bill.  In the same spirit I hope that Congress will honor this Kennedy’s legacy by passing health care reform.

  12. I have long felt that Sen. Kennedy’s advocacy and prodigious accomplishments on behalf of working & poor people were as much penance as a person could possibly pay after the 1969 blemish.  

  15. Belief systems aside years of service to others has to be respected.  What I most fear is the end of not only the man but those Camelot years marked by his brother’s Presidency.  While I may have a radical worldview I am truely saddened by his death.

  16. (From a post I made here in ’06, after Senator Kennedy appeared at a Deval Patrick campaign event in Worcester:)

    <

    p>

    Ted Kennedy is not so smooth in front of a crowd these days, but seeing him and hearing him reminded me […] of his astonishing term of service to the country – the last twenty years of it as my senator — spanning most of my lifetime, and characterized not only by loyalty to his constituency and his principles, but his ability to foster bipartisanship in getting things done.

    I remember sitting with my parents in the gallery of the U.S. Senate in December 1963, the nation still in mourning over JFK’s assassination.  One after another, the senators gave tribute to the late president; finally, a very young Ted Kennedy – one year into his first term – rose to acknowledge the memorials and give his own.  I wish I could remember even a little bit of what he said — I was eight years old.  I just remember the gravity of the moment, and how moved my parents were.  As had many of their generation, they had heard JFK say “Ask not…” and taken it to heart.

    <

    p>Although I’ve only lived in Massachusetts for 23 years now, Ted Kennedy was my senator for much longer than that, since the things he cared about and fought for are the things my parents cared about, fought for, and taught their kids to care about — peace, justice, and opportunity for all Americans.

    <

    p>He was flawed as a man, a husband, a candidate, and a leader, but not as a champion for all of us who are only human.  His humanity, and the fact that he fought for the least of us despite coming from a privileged family, gave his idealism a veracity and power that were unique in my lifetime.

    <

    p>Thanks, Ted.

  17. I did like Deval’s statement: “One of the Commonwealth’s brightest lights went out last night.”

    <

    p>I guess that’s how I feel — the state and the nation are a little darker without Senator Kennedy.

    <

    p>And, I know it’s too soon, and it’s impossible to replace him, but unless the laws change we’ll be having an election within 160 days.  According to my math, that makes the window as follows:

    <

    p>Primary: Between December 8, 2009 & December 22, 2009
    General: Between January 19, 2010 & February 2, 2010

      • Even if we count 160 days from today instead of yesterday, there’s no way anyone would schedule a primary the Tuesday before Christmas, which puts the latest likely date for the general at Jan 26th.

        <

        p>Anyway, sorry for the derail.

            • Special election must be held no less than 145 days and no more than 160 days from the day of the vacancy…therefore:
              Date of vacancy: 26-Aug-09
              Primary must fall between: 07-Dec-09 and 22-Dec-09
              General must fall between: 18-Jan-10 and 02-Feb-10
              Most likely dates: Primary, 15-Dec-09 Final: 26-Jan-10

              • If the lege wants to allow the Governor to fill the vacant seat (with Mike Dukakis, for example), they can surely vote to make that happen.

              • How are your calculations different than mine?  All I did was round to the nearest Tuesday on the beginning end.

                <

                p>Again, sorry for the derail, but I want to make sure I get this right because people are going to be asking me.

  19. those who devoted their lives to defending the downtrodden, the disenfranchised and often, the despised. because people of that character, and of that strength, are such rare beacons.

    <

    p>edward kennedy, as a man, will forever stand in that class.

  20. The greatest myth about Camelot is that these men were not human beings. As we have learned more and more in these decades this family had its fair share of warts and flaws, womanizing, alcoholism, the treatment of Rosemary, etc. Similarly while the presidency of John and the candidacy of Robert may end up being the more lasting legacy of the family in history, I would argue that the achievements of the Kennedy siblings that died this month, Eunice and Ted far overshadowed those of their more famous siblings.

    <

    p>I would argue that disabled people in general owe a huge debt of gratitude to both of Ted Kennedy who helped pass the Americas with Disabilities Act and Eunice Shriver who established the special Olympics and contributed extensively to the creation of the paralympic games. This was another important and sometimes forgotten phase in the civil rights movement, one I am personally grateful for with a nephew with severe learning disabilities who thanks to many of the programs Ted initiated can lead a normal life, and my own father who no longer has to fear discrimination due to his physical disability.

    <

    p>And for every other American just looking over the length and breadth of legislation that Ted Kennedy played a crucial part in spearheading through the Congress from the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, Medicaid, Welfare Reform, S-CHIP, Head Start, early LGBT civil rights acts, Freedom of Information Act, the National Archives Act, the aforementioned Americans with Disabilities Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Immigration Act of 1965, the Immigration Act of 1984, and the comprehensive reform that will likely be passed by President Obama was largely written by Ted Kennedy. Orrin Hatch a longtime partisan foe but personal friend and essential colleague of Teds recently said that we will never know how successful healthcare reform could have been if he had been fully healthy to write and implement it in the Senate. We know that Ted was essential in killing the Bork nomination, killing efforts by the Reagan administration to roll back civil rights legislation, killing the flag burning amendment, killing privatized social security, and a tireless advocate of teaching evolution in schools. Yet we see here that blacks, gays, immigrants, the disabled, the impoverished, the elderly, and the sick in this country all owe a debt of gratitude to this once living and now truly legendary icon of the Senate.

    <

    p>I have had many personal disagreements with Ted Kennedy. His handling of the Chappaquiddick disaster, his treatment of his ex-wife Joan Kennedy, his drinking, his infidelity, his occasional negligence towards his family are all terrible blemishes on his personal and political record. His flip flopping on abortion in the run up to the 1980 campaign was a craven political calculation that betrayed a political conscience that long strived to give voice to the voiceless whether it be blacks, immigrants, gays, the elderly, the sick, the disabled, and lastly and most importantly the unborn. His abandonment of the Catholic social justice principles that drove the political ideals of his family is disheartening, and I commend his sister Eunice for keeping the faith. I would also add his self destructive and selfish candidacy for president in 1980 contributed significantly to President Carter’s defeat and was one of the few times Ted Kennedy failed to be a good Democrat.

    <

    p>But we must take the bad with the good, and while I am sure the Herald and Howie Carr will only focus on the scandals and the blemishes, and I am sure the Globe and Chris Matthews will only gloss over them, it is important to acknowledge both since the make the measure of the full man. Towards the last two decades of his public life I am confident that Ted Kennedy emerged from the 1980s as a man who had finally grown up and matured from the childish and reckless man he once was to a sober, mature, and capable person and Senator. It is notable that his best legislative years in the Senate were in those last two decades showing us that his change in character lead to an improvement in his ability as a lawmaker. Taking the good and the bad into consideration I was glad I was able to follow my grandfather and father in casting my vote for Ted Kennedy in 2006, my first election no less.  

    • That my prayers and thoughts are with Vicki and the rest of the Kennedy family as they endure the death of their beloved Ted on top of the death of their beloved Eunice as well.  

  22.                                                                                                                              

    <

    p>I don’t have a memory of politics without Senator Kennedy.                                      
    Nor, in my life, have I seen anybody cope so gracefully with                                    
    MORE…                                                                        

    <

    p>…More reason for self-pity… more excuse for                                                
    self-aggrandizement… more work than energy able to complete                                  
    it… More expected of him and yet more taken away…  more wanted and                          
    more wanting…                                                                                

    <

    p>Yet never have I seen Kennedy stoop to self-aggrandizement nor sink to                          
    self-pity. Never have I seen him flagged in his energy to do the                                
    work he must have known he would never complete. We would have                                  
    understood if he had.  We would have said such things as ‘can you                              
    blame him?’ or ‘nice try, Senator…’.  But he never did.  Despite                              
    being the exemplar of tragedy in our America.  We excuse professional                          
    tragedians like Bill Clinton or even lionize someone like Warren                                
    Buffet, who, on their best days, are mere shadows in comparison to the                          
    lion of the senate.  Another drug addled singer (Elvis? Micheal                                
    Jackson?) dies and we call that tragedy.  That’s not tragedy. That                              
    merely consequence.  All the moaning and keening and wailing done in                            
    mourning for drug-addicted entertainers has been, though more deserved,
    both refused and refuted by Kennedy.                                                                            

    <

    p>There are people working today, careerist politicians and bus-drivers,                          
    lawyers and housekeepers, trashmen and fireman, cops and janitors who                          
    will understand him best: the hard slog of years with the best reward a                        
    days job well done, day in and day out.  He was privileged at birth but never
    confined by privilege to that of mere heir nor freed, by                                                
    privilege, to eschew duty.  That was, to him, and ought to be to us,                            
    immoral.  It seems to me that John Kennedy had an intellectual toughness not                    
    often seen in politics and that Robert Kennedy had a moral toughness                            
    rarely seen at all but that Edward Kennedy combined them both for the                          
    long haul.  We are all better for it.  A lot of working people today                            
    benefit from better policies, and therefore both longer and better lives,
    precisely because of the work of Ted Kennedy.                                                            

    <

    p>Only two senators have served longer, Robert Byrd (still serving) and                          
    Strom Thurmond.  But, of the world that Strom Thurmond envisioned and                          
    fought for, very little is left, and that which remains of his vision                          
    is merely decay and festering wounds.  But the                                                  
    world that Ted Kennedy envisioned remains before us: we’ve only                                
    touched the shores of a very little bit of it. We’ve had to push back                          
    against the darkness first, and move towards civil rights for all.                              
    Ted Kennedy passes at a time when the darkness is still receding and                            
    we are, however feebly, struggling to bring forth more light.                                  

    <

    p>In politics he faced off against the moral and lost (James Carter in ’80) and                  
    the amoral and won (Mitt Romney, ’94).  One can’t have much better                              
    track record than that. His brightest moment, as I recall it, isn’t the                        
    rather excellent speech he gave at the ’80 convention but the speech,                          
    rather pointed, even (it must be said) altogether nasty, he gave in                            
    opposition to the nomination of Robert Bork, a regressive troglodyte                            
    of immense (it must also be said) and pointed nastiness.  Robert Borks America                  
    shares a lot of distressing similarities to Strom Thurmonds                                    
    America. And so we are also indebted to him for the compromises he                              
    refused to make, as well as those he made.                                                      

    <

    p>People will do well to think, upon the occasion of Senator Kennedys                            
    passing, of such things as moral and intellectual backbone; of tragedy                          
    and consequences;  Of will in service to others rather than mere                                
    nihilism.                                              

    • But alas we can’t have pre-emptive special elections.  I suppose it would also work if the law said in the event of a vacancy the next highest vote-getter in the most recent election automatically takes the seat.

    • lightiris 3’d my comment.  It’s the first thing that crossed my mind in all the talk of the last of the American Aristocracy passing.  Regardless of politics, The Kennedy family is unique in their old-world status.  They even had a sort of succession (Joe->Jack->Bobby->Teddy)

      <

      p>My comment is certainly not insulting, neither by definition nor intent.  As a lover of old-world history, I have a great deal of admiration for what the Kennedy’s were able to achieve.  The ultimate sign of progress: an Irish family rising to aristocracy in a Anglo-Saxon nation founded on despise for the King.  They were Camelot in America, and by succession Ted was le Roi.  Quite remarkable!

      • is not and never has been a “king” in any way.  The word “king” suggests an undeserving rise to power based on privilege alone–or, in some cases, criminal activity.  In general, kings don’t work hard, they don’t devote their entire lives to the poorest among us.  

        <

        p>I have no problem removing my rating given your explanation, but I certainly don’t think it’s an apt or justified characterization of Ted Kennedy’s legacy.  

        • ..is chock full of whining about how Teddy got his position on name alone.

          <

          p>I won’t provide links, since I don’t want to give anything that hateful airtime.

        • Ted Kennedy’s legacy is going to include the family ties, the aristocracy, his ascendancy et. al.  

          <

          p>A legacy can’t be cherry picked to include only the good or perceived good a person has done.  Lincoln will always have on his record the unconstitutional suspension of habeus corpus, George III will always be remembered by America as a tyrant (even though in reality he was far from one) and Kennedy is always going to have stuff like Chappaquidick.  Want a better contemperary example?  

          <

          p>Dan Marino has lots and lots of NFL QB records.  However, his legacy is oftentimes defined by the fact he never won a superbowl.  

          <

          p>Long story short, his legacy is defined by numerous facets, and is done well by this thread.  It would not be an apt or justified characterization of his legacy as a whole to not include what I have mentioned.  Leaving out the bad or perceived bad (and I certainly don’t percieve what I’ve pointed out as bad) would be the type of thing that the intellectually dishonest do.  We, the reality-based community would never succumb to such simple indiscretions, now would we?  

          • Long story short, his legacy is defined by numerous facets, and is done well by this thread.  It would not be an apt or justified characterization of his legacy as a whole to not include what I have mentioned.  Leaving out the bad or perceived bad (and I certainly don’t percieve what I’ve pointed out as bad) would be the type of thing that the intellectually dishonest do

            <

            p>A legacy is a willful and deliberate gift from those gone to those who remain: it is not about who they were, nor about where they came from, but about what specifically they tried to do and what they deliberately left behind.  It is what is derived from their life from what they specifically and deliberately tried to do…

            <

            p>A biography is the simple recital of facts, good and bad, about the circumstances and events of someones life.

            <

            p>Lincoln deliberately suspended Habeus and George III specifically provoked the  colonists.  This is legacy.  Dan Marion specifically and deliberately attempted to win superbowls. It wasn’t an accident of history that he didn’t.

            <

            p>Kennedy’s birth into ‘aristocracy’ (whatever you think that means in a democracy) has little to do with his specific actions and what he left behind: there is nothing inherent to ‘aristocracy’ that required or directed him to be what he was, nor to do what he did. There is nothing stopping either our remaining ‘aristocrats’ nor people of ‘lower’ birth from doing the same thing and acting in the same manner.  

            • Without the situation he was born into, he would not have ascended his Senate seat with relative ease and little (comparative) experience at such a young age.  His birthname may have been happenstance, but the benefits of his birthname were things he took full advantage of.  

              <

              p>Not that I make an attempt to criticize him for it right now, but would a man who was not Edward Kennedy have gotten a suspended sentance after Chappaquidick?

              <

              p>These all play into the legacy.  It it something he did willfully give to those who come after him, but the manner in which he was able to create that gift must be taken into account.  His noble upbringing was pivotol in the formation of his character and being and the direction of his life.  It’s true for most people!

              <

              p>Barack Obama, regardless of what he does as president now, will have in his legacy the truth that you can come from nothing and become president.  That’s what I’m getting at, if you get what I’m saying.  

              • .. is there something about that which you don’t get???

                <

                p>

                Remembering his roots its important to understand him, though

                <

                p>Sure enough, but that too has to do with biography and not legacy. We’re not here to understand him, but to pay tribute to him and his legacy.

                <

                p>We don’t have legacies to understand people. That’s not what a legacy is. We read biographies and study context to understand people.  We have legacies to remember the things they deliberately tried to do and the world they tried to leave behind.  

                • and your legacy is part of your biography.

                  <

                  p>The two can’t simply be seperated as if they are unconnected entities.  

                • Your biography is PART of your legacy and your legacy is part of your biography.

                  <

                  p>Reinventing the meanings of words doesn’t do much for your argument.   A legacy is a long-lasting effect or a tangible/non-tangible thing handed down by a predecessor.  Your equation above is inaccurate at best and simply lazy thinking at worst.

        • …was not so much kingship as succession, and yes there has been a dynastic quality to the Kennedys, but as Jerry Seinfeld might say “not that there’s anything wrong with that”.  Kennedy DID come from privilege, but he was aware of that and used his position to help those less so.  There have also been plenty of royals throughout history who have been conscientious in their service so I object to painting them with quite so broad a brush.

          • A “dynastic quality”?   Chalk another one up to the pablum-feeding media.

            <

            p>Kings are born into privileged positions irrespective of their deeds, qualifications, or values.  To suggest that Ted Kennedy is one of these simply because he has an affluent family that has a long history of real public service–voluntary public service, by the way–is an insult to both the hard work and the dedication of the Kennedys as well as their sacrifice.  None of the Kennedys, except in the simplistic minds of the media and the hopelessly romantic, are “royal” or “dynastic.”  Your comparison, while facile and attractive to some, is off the mark.

            • …Kennedy was not born to privilege?  He and his brothers were encouraged into public service and that’s great, but public service and privilege are not mutually exclusive.  The Roosevelts and the Bushes fall into this category as well.  Many, probably rightly, say that George W. Bush would never have been Governor, let alone President, had it not been for the family he was born into.

              <

              p>When Kennedy was first running in 1962 his opponent said that if his name were Edward Moore rather than Edward Moore Kennedy his candidacy would be a joke.  Of course, coming from the nephew of the Speaker of the US House we can take that comment with a huge grain of salt.  Edward McCormack was said opponent and Kennedy’s GOP opponent in the general was George Lodge, son and grandson of two Senators named Henry Cabot Lodge and thus also a dynast.  George’s grandfather, Henry Sr., defeated Ted’s grandfather John Fitzgerald in 1916 for that Senate seat and in 1952, Henry Jr. lost his bid for re-election to that Senate seat at the hands of future President Kennedy.

              <

              p>The point is, Massachusetts has a strong tradition of being served by somewhat dynastic political families.  Even the Bushes and Roosevelts have MA connections.  The first President Bush was born in Milton though I’m pretty sure no members of that family has been elected from MA.  Mark Roosevelt was our nominee for Governor in 1994 and served in the General Court.  Obviously we don’t have hereditary law, but the sense of service follows through the generations.  To call someone dynastic is only an insult if you take it as one.  If my Seinfeld reference wasn’t clear enough let me try again.  To me the Kennedys are honored by their service and absolutely are a dynasty in the best sense of the word.  I mean that as the highest compliment.

              • No one with a firing neuron would suggest that Ted Kennedy wasn’t born into privilege.  There is a difference, however, between being born a prince and being born into an affluent family.  That’s the meaning of privilege I’m talking about.  

                <

                p>If you like the idea of the Kennedys as royalty and Ted Kennedy as some sort of symbolic king, you’re welcome to that notion.  That construct, in my view, is simplistic and dismissive, and does nothing to illuminate his fifty plus years of public service for the least among us.   To each his own.

                • I only mean the fact that several people of the same family have held public office, hence “dynastic”.  Unlike real royalty the Kennedys did of course still have to be elected.

  24. There’s not much to say that hasn’t been said.  Ted Kennedy was a rarity: a man who entered politics ahead of his time, and exited politics still ahead of his time.  He was never satisfied that America had reached its promise, and instead worked and gave so much to keep pulling it forward.  Kennedy was a Senator who worked and lived to by Senator today rather than President tomorrow.

    <

    p>Somebody else will fill his seat, but s/he will not replace him.  Nobody can.

    <

    p>May he be commended to whichever land of dreams his brothers now call home, so they may welcome him for a job well done and a legacy befitting a Kennedy.

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