Kennedy remembered for 'dream he kept alive'

Sunday 30th August, 07:09 AM JST

BOSTON —

Sen Edward M Kennedy was celebrated Saturday for “the good he did, the dream he kept alive,” his funeral inside a soaring Catholic church a memorial to one man’s life and a remarkable political era now ended.

Row upon row of mourners sat facing the casket bearing Kennedy’s mortal remains, President Barack Obama as well as previous occupants of the White House, enough senators to make up a quorum and dozens of members of the most famous political family in the land.

One son, Patrick, wept quietly as another son, Teddy Jr, spoke from the pulpit of the day years ago, shortly after losing a leg to cancer, that he slipped walking up an icy driveway as he headed out to go sledding. “I started to cry and I said, `I’ll never be able to climb up that hill,’” said Teddy Jr.

“And he lifted me up in his strong, gentle arms and said something I will never forget, he said, ‘I know you can do it. There is nothing that you can’t do.’”

Rain beat down steadily as Kennedy’s coffin was borne by a military honor guard into the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and again when it was brought back out to the hearse for the trip to his final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington.

In life, the senator had visited the burial ground often to mourn his brothers, John and Robert, killed in their 40s, more than a generation ago, by assassins’ bullets.

“He was given a gift of time that his brothers were not. And he used that time to touch as many lives and right as many wrongs as the years would allow,” Obama said in a eulogy that also gently made mention of Kennedy’s “personal failings and setbacks.”

As a member of the Senate, Kennedy was a “veritable force of nature,” the president said. But more than that, the “baby of the family who became its patriarch, the restless dreamer who became its rock.”

Those left behind to mourn “grieve his passing with the memories he gave, the good he did, the dream he kept alive” Obama said inside the packed church.

Hundreds lined nearby sidewalks, ignoring the rain, as the funeral procession passed.

“I said to myself this morning, ‘No matter what the weather, I’m going, I don’t care if I have to swim,” said Lillian Bennett, 59, who added she was a longtime Kennedy supporter and determined to get as close as she could to the invitation-only funeral.

“The Mass of Christian burial weaves together memory and hope,” said the Rev Mark R Hession, parish priest at the church in a working class neighborhood of Boston.

There was plenty of both in a two-hour service filled with references to Kennedy’s political accomplishments and personal recollections of his private life. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and tenor Placido Domingo provided musical grace notes.

Kennedy’s widow, Vicki, his sole surviving sibling, Jean, and Robert Kennedy’s widow, Ethel, carefully arranged the cloth funeral pall atop the coffin.

Like others, Teddy Jr, touched on his father’s legacy.

“He answered Uncle Joe’s call to patriotism, Uncle Jack’s call to public service and Bobby’s determination to seek a newer world. Unlike them, he lived to be a grandfather,” he said.

Joseph Kennedy Jr died in World War II, John F Kennedy was the nation’s 35th president when he was assassinated in 1963 and Sen Robert F Kennedy was killed five years later as he campaigned for the presidency.

Kennedy died Tuesday at 77, more than a year after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Saturday’s events marked the end of four days of public and private mourning meant to emphasize Kennedy’s 47 years in the Senate from Massachusetts, his standing as the foremost liberal Democrat of the late 20th century yet a legislator who courted compromise with Republicans, a family man and last heir to a dynasty that began in the years after World War II.

Thousands of mourners filed past his flag-draped coffin earlier in the week when Kennedy lay in repose at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. Republicans and Democrats alike recalled his political career in a bipartisan evening of laughter-filled speechmaking on Friday.

Even the church had special meaning for the family. Kennedy prayed there daily several years ago during his daughter Kara’s successful battle with lung cancer.

___

David Espo reported from Washington. AP writer Karen Testa contributed from Boston.

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Latest 15 of 47 Total Comments Show All

smithinjapan at 10:41 PM JST - 30th August

WilliB: "I wonder what Mary Jo Kopechne would think about all these glowing eulogies. Did she get anything like that?"

You can join the small but entrenched (heads firmly in the sand) group of posters who didn't give a wit about her until a few days ago and be the Mary-Jo eulogy writer yourself. Never too late, even though you probably just learned her name. Hell, you can frame it and put it on the wall on the new building you guys should make in her honour... you know, since you care so much.

seijichuudo: A whole lot of people agreed with the plan to illegally invade Iraq, which shouldn't be a surprise given what they were told. It's disappointing that he agreed to it, but he was duped like so many others.
seijichuudo9sha at 10:48 PM JST - 30th August

Please,people. Ted Kennedy was in the Senate for 5 decades.Do ya really believe the rookie arrival from the state of Texas pulled the wool over HIS eyes on a subject as simple as Iraq?

Liberal Lion?Yes.

Saint?No.
yabits at 11:25 PM JST - 30th August

I wonder what Mary Jo Kopechne would think about all these glowing eulogies. Did she get anything like that?

Checking...checking....

Nope, there is no record of a Mary Jo Kopechne serving as a 5-term senator.

The conservative talk-show host John McLaughlin today told his audience about a special show being planned to ackowledge the "extraordinary accomplishments" of Senator Ted Kennedy. The blind, the deaf, and (especially) the dumb remain clueless.
Blue_Tiger at 02:42 AM JST - 31st August

I won't criticize the man on the day he is being buried.....but I will say that I 100% disagreed with him, and think he and his elder brothers were diametrically opposite....
buddha4brains at 06:02 AM JST - 31st August

Midnightpromise actually he was charge with something. How do I know? I stopped to read a newspaper which described the incident. It is not hard to find, try the NY Times.
Tatanka at 07:09 AM JST - 31st August

Bill Maher can say nasty things about Jerry Falwell upon his death, but when conservatives say anything derogatory about Teddy, they are called vile and heinous. By the way, Teddy did plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident -- which would have been like Lee Harvey Oswald pleading guilty to disharging a gun in a public place...
WhiteHawk at 10:26 AM JST - 31st August

hworta269:

Smith democrats are going to use his death to further their health care bill which was a prediction a while ago. Now talking about his "drams" in meaning legislation I wonder how long he would have lived if he had to use the same healthcare he would force on all the rest of Americans?

But that's Teddy was all about: Passing laws for everybody else to live under.

buddha4brains:

The wind farm story is all about Kennedy working with Ted Stevens and other Republicans to halt construction.

...of a wind farm. In Cape Cod.

That was the intention of the article, yes. But the story-within-the-story was that Kennedy's environmentalism ideals only applied to other people's backyards. When it came to spoiling his (or his friends, family and neighbors) view, he was just as NIMBY as all the other "limousine liberals".

smithinjapan:

Don't expect WhiteHawk to acknowledge his being incorrect in favour of simply pretending he's right and doing exactly what he claimed others do -- simply wait for the next Kennedy post and stop on this one. I mean, the guy actually said what he wrote was 'original' and yet in the same sentence said it's the 'same thing' he posts every thread. I realize he meant original as in his own, but unoriginal in thought is just that.

Yes, original as in "my own". buddha4brains' question addressed whether I was copying someone else's idea. The fact that I've had to repeat my points in thread after thread (and getting personal insults instead of intelligent debate as already noted) says much more about the defensiveness and ignorance of Kennedy's fans than it does about any supposed lack of creativity on my part.

If someone had debated me and proven me wrong the first time, I would've dropped it then. Unlike so many of JT's left-wing posters who lose a debate on one thread, then continue repeating their original - and defeated - talking points on every subsequent thread addressing the issue.

So... back to the debate? There are more points left to cover.

adaydream:

For those who like throwing stones, but there were no finer men then Ted Kennedy. He was a pillar of public service and passionate about life. < :-)

If he genuinely cared about life and "those less fortunate", he would have given his own life to save a drowning woman, no? I mean, that's what heroes do. They put others before themselves and risk or even give their lives to save them. But when given the opportunity, he wouldn't even give up his political career.

No, Teddy was just another condescending "limousine liberal". A wealthy (by inheritance), stubborn, powerful, politically-connected one, to be sure, but that does not make him a "fine man". He might be a saint to you, Alan, but he's only a Patron Saint of Fortunate Relations. In other words, he was nothing without everybody else.

yabits:

Nope, there is no record of a Mary Jo Kopechne serving as a 5-term senator.

You say that like being a 5-term senator means anything.

Tatanka:

Bill Maher can say nasty things about Jerry Falwell upon his death, but when conservatives say anything derogatory about Teddy, they are called vile and heinous.

They don't even have to say anything deragatory. All they have to do is remind Kennedy's fans of the facts about his life. Which are, um, derogatory in context. Ah well. Teddy lived his life as he wanted, it wasn't directed by his detractors on JT.

By the way, Teddy did plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident -- which would have been like Lee Harvey Oswald pleading guilty to disharging a gun in a public place...

Well, let's be fair about this. ;) Oswald didn't have a rich-and-connected Daddy Joe to write his plea deal for him.
yabits at 10:37 AM JST - 31st August

but I will say that I 100% disagreed with him, and think he and his elder brothers were diametrically opposite....

Anyone who thinks that Ted Kennedy was "diametrically" opposite to the political philosphy of his own brothers is simply not thinking.
yabits at 10:39 AM JST - 31st August

but when conservatives say anything derogatory about Teddy, they are called vile and heinous.

Actually, there are a lot of conservatives who don't have to open their mouths to demonstrate their vileness -- but it sure does help.
yabits at 10:44 AM JST - 31st August

Oswald didn't have a rich-and-connected Daddy Joe to write his plea deal for him.

Joseph Kennedy, having suffered a debilitating stroke in 1961, was barely able to coprehend what was going on in the last year of his life, much less go around writing plea deals.

Of course, don't let facts like that stop you from posting your hate-filled nonsense.

Moderator: Readers, please stay on topic and keep the discussion civil.
yabits at 10:59 AM JST - 31st August

You say that like being a 5-term senator means anything.

LOL. It's something more than trying to claim that being a 7-term senator means nothing. That's over 46 years of keeping the dream alive.
Taka313 at 12:33 AM JST - 1st September

Have we reached a point where we can call it Kennedy Derangement Syndrome yet?

Taka
yabits at 06:19 AM JST - 1st September

Have we reached a point where we can call it Kennedy Derangement Syndrome yet?

It's a great question. As the song asks, "How long has this been going on?"
seijichuudo9sha at 02:21 PM JST - 1st September

We can call it Kennedy Derangement Syndrome, but it doesn't reflect too well on our side, since the term kinda started with reactions to bush.The neo-con Charles Krauthammer made it part of the lexicon of US politics.
WhiteHawk at 08:39 AM JST - 2nd September

yabits:

Joseph Kennedy, having suffered a debilitating stroke in 1961, was barely able to coprehend what was going on in the last year of his life, much less go around writing plea deals.

Oh, you're just sore I caught you contradicting yourself on Kennedy's drinking that fateful night. ;)

The Kennedy family held great influence in Massachussetts, and there's no reasonable way you can deny it.

Getting into Harvard, getting his Army enlistment reduced by half and a posh assignment away from the Korean War, having his brother's senate seat reserved until he was old enough to run for it, riding the popularity of his brothers into office, getting a ceremonial slap on the wrist for causing the death of someone, trading on the myth of the Kennedy "Camelot" to secure his office even to his dying breath...

It is not "derangement" to point out these facts about Teddy Kennedy's life. It is derangement to obsessively ignore those facts and attack those who voice them, in an attempt to portray Teddy Kennedy as anything more decent than the drunken, womanizing, fortunate benefactor of a political empire based on a bootlegger's fortunes.

Since my original points about Teddy being a fraud have not been challenged - much less proven wrong - then I will continue to stand by them and repeat whenever I want. If any Kennedy fans don't like it, well, you've have ample opportunity to spend your energy trying to prove me wrong and instead you wasted it attacking me.

As I've said before, I won't dance on Teddy's grave, but I won't forgive him either. If you want to call me vile or hateful or whatever, go ahead. I honestly could not care less what anyone here thinks of me. In the end, you're only lying to yourselves. If there's any hate on these Kennedy threads, it's the Kennedy fans hating me for refusing to bury the truth along with Teddy.

Edward "Teddy" Kennedy is dead, the truth about him is not.