RIP Edward Kennedy

[u2roolz]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TedKennedy/story?id=6692022

 

Strangely enough I heard about this on Facebook from an old college friend in NYC. Than 2 minutes later it broke on the local Boston channels.

 

Kristofor

[nurfherder]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TedKennedy/story?id=6692022

 

Strangely enough I heard about this on Facebook from an old college friend in NYC. Than 2 minutes later it broke on the local Boston channels.

 

Kristofor

 

It was a long time coming for poor Teddy. May you rest in peace, you old lion.

[cryptique]

He had his flaws, but he was a terrific Senator, and history will remember him as a great man.

 

This morning's obituary on NPR suggested that, because of the huge amount of legislation he authored, he actually had more of an effect on his country than either of his more famous brothers.

 

RIP, Ted.

[remphish1]

He had his flaws, but he was a terrific Senator, and history will remember him as a great man.

 

This morning's obituary on NPR suggested that, because of the huge amount of legislation he authored, he actually had more of an effect on his country than either of his more famous brothers.

 

RIP, Ted.

 

Ted has been in Politics longer so it does make sense. RIP Ted!

[Sir Stewart]

RIP Lonesome Bulldog

[PopTodd]

[Good Old Neon]

Tragically, he was one among a dwindling pool of “adults” still practicing within the political sphere – love him or hate him, his (more often than not) sensible, sober (yes, I know, a word not often associated with Ted) style of stewardship could have helped steer the ridiculous circus that now surrounds health care reform in a saner, more practical direction.

 

Me, I liked him – though, as a Massachusetts native, I think a fondness for the Kennedys is encoded in my DNA.

[Moss]

Huge impact on the nation, he will be missed.

[Dude]

I had hoped he would have lived long enough to put a vote in on health care reform. I think he hoped so, too.

[buffy3kins]

Since I'm from Kansas I haven't seen all the things Teddy did. I can't help but wonder why so many people kept voting for him while he got by with murder for 42 years. People have resigned from and been kicked out of public office for lesser things. I also have to wonder how the Kennedy family history and money managed to help keep him in office for so long.

[Atticus]

[cryptique]

Since I'm from Kansas I haven't seen all the things Teddy did. I can't help but wonder why so many people kept voting for him while he got by with murder for 42 years. People have resigned from and been kicked out of public office for lesser things. I also have to wonder how the Kennedy family history and money managed to help keep him in office for so long.

A little respect for the dead, please. Christ.

[Guest Speed Racer]

while he got by with murder for 42 years.

 

Christ, so YOU were the third passenger in the car?!

 

I also have to wonder how the Kennedy family history and money managed to help keep him in office for so long.

 

Might have had something to do with what a devoted and effective public servant he was. I don't care if you're from Ghana, a quick glace at his obit or Wikipedia entry - even a damned headline - will tell you he was a true servant to the country, authoring as many bills and Lennon/McCartney did hits and devoting himself to a range of causes and acting as a rare level-headed presence in politics.

[watch me fall]

A little respect for the dead, please. Christ.

 

You knew someone was going to bring that up. Lawd.

[Sir Stewart]

As a Massachusetts resident who voted for Teddy a number of times, I think it's a valid question, if a little insensitive timing-wise.

[Good Old Neon]

Since I'm from Kansas I haven't seen all the things Teddy did. I can't help but wonder why so many people kept voting for him while he got by with murder for 42 years. People have resigned from and been kicked out of public office for lesser things. I also have to wonder how the Kennedy family history and money managed to help keep him in office for so long.

 

We Massachusetts folk just love the murder and the gays and the fornicating and the buggery and the Kennedys – in that order. Don’t you know that by now?

[Edie]

Since I'm from Kansas I haven't seen all the things Teddy did.

 

When did Kansas secede from the union? If you are living in the US today, you have benefited from legislation either written by Ted Kennedy or shepherded through the senate by Ted Kennedy.

 

I cried this am - which I did not do for Michael Jackson.

[Good Old Neon]

From Salon - the article from which this was pulled contains the video.

 

Emotional Biden remembers Kennedy

 

Wednesday morning, Vice President Biden was at the Department of Energy, where he was supposed to give a speech about energy policy. The death of Sen. Ted Kennedy changed that, however, as an emotional Biden instead spoke about the loss of his friend and colleague, and what the senator had meant to him.

 

"We lost a truly remarkable man," Biden said. "To paraphrase Shakespeare, I don't think we shall ever see his like again."

 

The vice president seemed to be speaking off the cuff, a habit that famously gets him in trouble -- but not this time. The speech, instead, was heartfelt and heart-wrenching, a story of Kennedy as a politician and as a man, and Biden occasionally had to pause, overcome with emotion. A video of Biden speaking is below; an excerpt of his remarks follows:

 

You know, Teddy spent a lifetime working for a fair and more just America. And for 36 years, I had the privilege of going to work every day and literally -- not figuratively -- sitting next to him and being a witness to history every single day the Senate was in session.

 

I sat with him on the Senate floor in the same aisle. I sat with him on the Judiciary Committee physically next to him. And I sat with him in the caucuses. And it was in that process -- every day I was with him -- and this is going to sound strange, but he restored my sense of idealism and my faith in possibilities of what this country could do.

 

He and I were talking after his diagnosis, and I said, "You know, I think you're the only other person I've met who, like me, is more optimistic, more enthusiastic, more idealistic, sees greater possibilities after 36 years than when we were elected."

 

He was 30 years old when he was elected. I was 29 years old. And you'd think that would be the peak of our idealism, but I genuinely feel more optimistic about the prospects for my country today than I did -- have at any time in my life. And it was infectious when you were with him. You could see it -- those of you who knew him and those of you who didn't know him -- you could just see it in the nature of his -- the debate, in the nature of his embrace, in the nature of how he, every single day, attacked these problems.

 

And, you know, he was never defeatist. He never was petty. Never was petty. He was never small. And in the process of his doing, he made everybody he worked with bigger; both his adversaries as well as his allies.

 

Don't you find it remarkable that one of the most partisan, liberal men in the last century serving in the Senate had so many of his -- so many of his foes embrace him because they know he made them bigger? He made them more graceful by the way in which he conducted himself.

 

You know, he changed the circumstances of tens of millions of Americans in the literal sense; literally, literally changed the circumstances. He changed, also, another aspect of it as I observed about him. He changed not only the physical circumstance; he changed how they looked at themselves and how they looked at one another.

 

That's a remarkable -- a remarkable contribution for any man or woman to make and for the hundreds, if not thousands, of us who got to know him personally. He actually -- how can I say it? He altered our lives as well. Through the grace of God and an accident of history, I was privileged to be one of those people. And every important event in my adult life, as I looked back this morning in talking to Vicki, every single one, he was there. He was there to encourage, to counsel, to be empathetic, to lift up.

 

From 1972, as a 29-year-old kid with three weeks left to go in a campaign, him showing up at the Delaware Armory in the middle of what we call Little Italy, would never vote nationally for a Democrat, I won by 3,100 votes and got 85 percent of the vote in that district or something to that effect. I literally would not be standing here were it not for Teddy Kennedy -- not figuratively. It's not hyperbole. Literally.

 

He was there -- he stood with me when my wife and daughter were killed in an accident. He was on the phone with me literally every day in the hospital when my two children were attempting, and God willing, got -- thankfully -- survived very serious injuries.

 

I'd turn around and there would be some specialist from Massachusetts -- a doc I never even asked for -- literally sitting in the room with me.

 

You know, it's not just me that he affected like that. It's hundreds upon hundreds of people.

 

I was talking with Vicki this morning, and she said -- she said, "He was ready to go, Joe, but we were not ready to let him go." He's left a great void in our public life and a hole in the hearts of millions of Americas and hundreds of us who were affected by his person touch throughout our lives; people like me who came to rely on him. He was kind of like an anchor.

 

And unlike many important people in my 38 years I've had the privilege of knowing, the unique thing about Teddy was it was never about him. It was always about you. It was never about him. There was people I admire, great women and women, but at the end of the day, it gets down to being about them. With Teddy, it was never about him.

 

Well, today, we lost a truly remarkable man. To paraphrase Shakespeare, I don't think we shall ever see his like again. I think the legacy he left was not just with the landmark legislation he passed but in how he helped people look at themselves and look at one another.

 

link - http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/?last_story=/politics/war_room/feature/2009/08/26/biden/

[Edie]

Thanks for posting that GON

[brianjeremy]

This is a terrible, but funny headline from the onion: 'Kennedy Curse' Claims Life Of 77-Year-Old Tumor-Riddled Binge-Drinker

[jmacomber68w]

Since I'm from Kansas I haven't seen all the things Teddy did. I can't help but wonder why so many people kept voting for him while he got by with murder for 42 years. People have resigned from and been kicked out of public office for lesser things. I also have to wonder how the Kennedy family history and money managed to help keep him in office for so long.

 

This is actually viachicago, I believe you were looking for this forum http://forums.hannity.com/

 

Anyways, RIP Teddy. I know on the political map we didn't always match up, but you were still one of the few good guys. Even though you had your flaws our country is better because of you!

 

[LouieB]

RIP Teddy....one of the last of the great liberals. No matter what his flaws, the guy had a hell of a life and a great legacy. He will be sorely missed. Perhaps his memory will get those Democrats with less courage to finally stand up on their hind legs and pass some healt care legislation which will once and for all cover all Americans.

 

By coincodence I will be in Boston on Saturday, but not at his funeral. But close enough.....

 

LouieB

[mountain bed]

Ted was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, as we all know. His family's legacy was assured long before he hit the scene. He could have lived the life of the idle rich, and just hung out on his yacht, doing nothing of real substance. But he did not. Instead, he became the voice of the disenfranchised - those who didn't have someone in their corner to go up against the entrenched interests of the 'power elite'.

 

Workers rights, civil rights, womens rights, gay/lesbian rights - the list is endless. Ted spoke for ALL of us, and in doing so became quite possibly more important to the history of this country than his older, more 'famous' brothers. To say he will be missed is a gross understatement.

 

The words "larger than life" have been bandied about all day today. But if there ever was a person where that cliche' is applicable, it's the distinguished gentleman from the great state of Massachusetts.

 

RIP Ted.

[Gewee]

Probably one of the greatest Senators of the last 100 years. I'm a NEer and I had the honor of watching him work to take care of those who needed help, to help reach the America that can be. I saw him speak on the floor of the Senate and met him during a campaign once. If you like things like weekends, racial and gender equity, the freedom to date whom you want, and conceive when you are ready then you probably should thank people like Ted Kennedy. It's terribly sad that we have lost a serious dedicated and reliable man who could have sailed away into a life of higher priveledge but instead stayed to fight for better lives for all Americans.

[Good Old Neon]

Since I'm from Kansas I haven't seen all the things Teddy did. I can't help but wonder why so many people kept voting for him while he got by with murder for 42 years. People have resigned from and been kicked out of public office for lesser things. I also have to wonder how the Kennedy family history and money managed to help keep him in office for so long.

 

I think the following passage from Clive Cook is probably about the best possible reply to these sorts of posts:

 

How to deal with Chappaquiddick has been a problem for many commentators and obituarists. Many decided, I think, that decency requires a veil to be drawn and euphemisms deployed, such as Wilentz's in that snippet. I disagree. I think you have to look at it unflinchingly, because you cannot understand the miracle of Kennedy's redemption otherwise. What he did was terrible. He survived as a politician only because of his name--a disgusting thing. But it changed him, and see what he then did with his life. He was emphatically not, as Paul Krugman writes, always a great man. He was once much less than a great man. What is astonishing is that he nonetheless made himself a great man.

 

the link - http://clivecrook.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/08/a_foreigner_reflects_on_ted_ke.php