Mass. Sen. Ted Kennedy Dies at 77, After Cancer Battle

[One2Snoop]

:patriot: :patriot: :patriot:


Mass. Sen. Ted Kennedy Dies at 77, After Cancer Battle

By Joe Holley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 26, 2009; 1:56 AM

Edward M. Kennedy, one of the most powerful and influential senators in American history and one of three brothers whose political triumphs and personal tragedies captivated the nation for decades, died at 77.

Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, was the last survivor of a privileged and charismatic family that in the 1960s dominated American politics and attracted worldwide attention. As heir through tragedy to his accomplished older brothers -- President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.), both of whom were assassinated -- Edward Kennedy became the patriarch of his clan and a towering figure in the U.S. Senate to a degree neither of his siblings had been.

Kennedy served in the Senate through five of the most dramatic decades of the nation's history. He became a lawmaker whose legislative accomplishments, political authority and gift for friendship across the political spectrum invited favorable comparisons to Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and a handful of other leviathans of the country's most elite political body. But he was also beset by personal frailties and family misfortunes that were the stuff of tabloid headlines.

For years, many Democrats considered Kennedy's own presidency a virtual inevitability. In 1968, a "Draft Ted" campaign emerged only a few months after Robert Kennedy's death, but he demurred, realizing he was not prepared to be president.

Political observers considered him the candidate to beat in 1972, but that possibility came to an end on a night in July 1969, when the senator drove his Oldsmobile off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass., and a young woman passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned.

The tragedy had a corrosive effect on Kennedy's image and eroded his national standing. He made a dismal showing when he challenged President Jimmy Carter for reelection in 1980. But the moment of his exit from the presidential stage marked an oratorical highlight when, speaking at the Democratic convention, he invoked his brothers and promised: "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on. The cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Instead of a president, Kennedy became a major presence in the Senate, which he had joined in 1962 with the help of his politically connected family. He was a cagey and effective legislator, even in the years when Republicans were in the ascendancy. When most Democrats sought to fend off the "liberal" label, the senior senator from Massachusetts wore it proudly.

Kennedy was at the center of the most important issues facing the nation for decades, and he did much to help shape them. A defender of the poor and politically disadvantaged, he set the standard for his party on health care, education, civil rights, campaign-finance reform and labor law. He also came to oppose the war in Vietnam, and, from the beginning, he was an outspoken opponent of the war in Iraq.

Congressional scholar Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, described Kennedy's mark on the Senate as "an amazing and endurable presence. You want to go back to the 19th century to find parallels, but you won't find parallels. It was the completeness of his involvement in the work of the Senate that explains his career."

Republicans repeatedly invoked Edward Kennedy for fundraising causes. They portrayed the hefty, ruddy-faced Massachusetts pol as the ultimate tax-and-spend liberal, Big Government in the flesh.

Despite that caricature, he was widely considered the Senate's most popular member and was on congenial terms with many of his Republican cohorts. On a number of issues, he searched for compromises that could attract GOP votes.

He collaborated with a Republican president, George W. Bush, on education reform, with a Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), on immigration reform and with arch-conservative senator J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina on major crime legislation. Only Thurmond, who died in 2003 at age 100, and Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) served longer in the Senate than Kennedy.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/26/AR2009082600063.html?hpid=topnews

[One2Snoop]

http://i25.tinypic.com/2elf4gw.jpg

[samanthajane13]

Thanks so much for jumping on this story, Snoop!

I saw it announced at about 3am, but was just to tired to fire my computer back up.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the Kennedy family and their friends.

We have lost a GREAT MAN.

:rose:RIP, Ted!:rose:

:patriot:

[samanthajane13]

Kennedy called 'singular figure' in America's life
By GLEN JOHNSON and BOB SALSBERG, Associated Press Writers Glen Johnson And Bob Salsberg, Associated Press Writers – 54 mins ago

HYANNIS PORT, Mass. – Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the last surviving brother in an enduring political dynasty and one of the most influential senators in history, died Tuesday night at his home on Cape Cod after a yearlong struggle with brain cancer. He was 77.

In nearly 50 years in the Senate, Kennedy, a liberal Democrat, served alongside 10 presidents — his brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy among them — compiling an impressive list of legislative achievements on health care, civil rights, education, immigration and more.

In a brief statement to reporters at his rented vacation home on Martha's Vineyard, Mass., President Barack Obama eulogized Kennedy as one of the "most accomplished Americans" in history — and a man whose work in Congress helped give millions new opportunities.

"Including myself," added the nation's first black president.

A source, speaking on grounds of anonymity because plans were still under way, told The Associated Press that Kennedy will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. At the eternal flame rests four Kennedy family members, including the former president, Jacqueline Kennedy, their baby son, Patrick, who died after two days, and a still-born child. Former Sen. Robert Kennedy F. Kennedy is buried a short distance away.

Kennedy's only run for the White House ended in defeat in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter turned back his challenge for the party's nomination. More than a quarter-century later, Kennedy handed then-Sen. Barack Obama an endorsement at a critical point in the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, explicitly likening the young contender to President Kennedy.

To the American public, Kennedy was best known as the last surviving son of America's most glamorous political family, father figure and, memorably, eulogist of an Irish-American clan plagued again and again by tragedy. But his career was forever marred by an accident at Chappaquiddick in 1969, when a car he was driving plunged off a bridge, killing a young woman.

Kennedy's death triggered an outpouring of superlatives from Democrats and Republicans as well as foreign leaders.

Vice President Joe Biden said he was "truly, truly distressed by his passing" and said that in the Senate, Kennedy had restored his "sense of idealism."

Sen. Orrin Hatch, the conservative Republican from Utah, called Kennedy "an iconic, larger than life United States Senator whose influence cannot be overstated."

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., the longest-serving senator, said: "I had hoped and prayed that this day would never come. My heart and soul weeps at the lost of my best friend in the Senate, my beloved friend, Ted Kennedy."

Kennedy's family announced his death in a brief statement released early Wednesday.

"We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever," it said. "We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all."

A few hours later, two vans left the famed Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port in pre-dawn darkness. Both bore hearse license plates — with the word "hearse" blacked out.

Several hundred miles away, flags few at half-staff at the U.S. Capitol, and Obama ordered the same at the White House and all federal buildings.

In his later years, Kennedy cut a barrel-chested profile, with a swath of white hair, a booming voice and a thick, widely imitated Boston accent. He coupled fist-pumping floor speeches with his well-honed Irish charm and formidable negotiating skills. He was both a passionate liberal and a clear-eyed pragmatist, willing to reach across the aisle.

He was first elected to the Senate in 1962, taking the seat that his brother John had occupied before winning the White House, and served longer than all but two senators in history.

His own hopes of reaching the White House were damaged — perhaps doomed — in 1969 by the scandal that came to be known as Chappaquiddick. He sought the White House more than a decade later, lost the Democratic nomination to President Jimmy Carter, and bowed out with a stirring valedictory that echoed across the decades: "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die."

Kennedy was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor in May 2008 and underwent surgery and a grueling regimen of radiation and chemotherapy.

He made a surprise return to the Capitol last summer to cast the decisive vote for the Democrats on Medicare. He made sure he was there again last January to see his former Senate colleague Barack Obama sworn in as the nation's first black president, but suffered a seizure at a celebratory luncheon afterward.

He also made a surprise and forceful appearance at last summer's Democratic National Convention, where he spoke of his own illness and said health care was the cause of his life. His death occurred precisely one year later, almost to the hour.

He was away from the Senate for much of this year, leaving Republicans and Democrats to speculate about the impact what his absence meant for the fate of Obama's health care proposals.

Under state law, Kennedy's successor will be chosen by special election. In his last known public act, the senator urged Massachusetts state legislators to give Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick the power to name an interim replacement. But that appears unlikely, leaving Democrats in Washington with one less vote for at least the next several months as they struggle to pass Obama's health care legislation.

His death came less than two weeks after that of his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver on Aug. 11. Kennedy was not present for the funeral, an indication of the precariousness of his own health. Of nine children born to Joseph and Rose Kennedy, only one — Jean Kennedy Smith, survives.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Kennedy's son Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., said his father had defied the predictions of doctors by surviving more than a year with his fight against brain cancer.

The younger Kennedy said that gave family members a surprise blessing, as they were able to spend more time with the senator and to tell him how much he had meant to their lives.

Kennedy arrived at his place in the Senate after a string of family tragedies. He was the only one of the four Kennedy brothers to die of natural causes.

Kennedy's eldest brother, Joseph, was killed in a plane crash in World War II. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down in Los Angeles as he campaigned for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination.

Years later, in 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed in a plane crash at age 38. His wife died with him.

It fell to Ted Kennedy to deliver the eulogies, to comfort his brothers' widows, to mentor fatherless nieces and nephews. It was Ted Kennedy who walked JFK's daughter, Caroline, down the aisle at her wedding.

Tragedy had a way of bringing out his eloquence.

Kennedy sketched a dream of a better future as he laid Robert to rest in 1968: "My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."


Continued...

[samanthajane13]

After John Jr.'s death, the senator said: "We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair, with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But like his father, he had every gift but length of years."

His own legacy was blighted on the night of July 18, 1969, when Kennedy drove his car off a bridge and into a pond on Chappaquiddick Island, on Martha's Vineyard. Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28-year-old worker with RFK's campaign, was found dead in the submerged car's back seat 10 hours later.

Kennedy, then 37, pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a two-month suspended sentence and a year's probation. A judge eventually determined there was "probable cause to believe that Kennedy operated his motor vehicle negligently ... and that such operation appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne."

At the height of the scandal, Kennedy went on national television to explain himself in an extraordinary 13-minute address in which he denied driving drunk and rejected rumors of "immoral conduct" with Ms. Kopechne. He said he was haunted by "irrational" thoughts immediately after the accident, and wondered "whether some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys." He said his failure to report the accident right away was "indefensible."

After Chappaquiddick especially, Kennedy gained a reputation as a heavy drinker and a womanizer, a tragically flawed figure haunted by the fear that he did not quite measure up to his brothers. As his weight ballooned, he was lampooned by comics and cartoonists in the 1980s and '90s as the very embodiment of government waste, bloat and decadence.

In 1991, Kennedy roused his nephew William Kennedy Smith and his son Patrick from bed to go out for drinks while staying at the family's Palm Beach, Fla., estate. Later that night, a woman Smith met at a bar accused him of raping her at the home.

Smith was acquitted, but the senator's carousing — and testimony about him wandering about the house in his shirttails and no pants — further damaged his reputation.

Kennedy offered a mea culpa in a speech at Harvard that October, recognizing "my own shortcomings, the faults in the conduct of my private life."

Politically, his concession speech at the Democratic convention in 1980 turned out to be a defining moment. At 48, he seemed liberated from the towering expectations and high hopes invested in him after the death of his brothers, and he plunged into his work in the Senate. In his later years, after he had divorced and remarried, he came to be regarded as a statesman on Capitol Hill, with a growing reputation as an effective, hard-working lawmaker.

His legislative achievements included bills to provide health insurance for children of the working poor, the landmark 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, Meals on Wheels for the elderly, abortion clinic access, family leave, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

He was also a key negotiator on legislation creating a Medicare prescription drug benefit for senior citizens, was a driving force for peace in Ireland and a persistent critic of the war in Iraq.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada issued a statement that said: "Ted Kennedy's dream was the one for which the Founding Fathers fought and for which his brothers sought to realize. The liberal lion's mighty roar may now fall silent, but his dream shall never die."

Former first Lady Nancy Reagan said that her husband and Kennedy "could always find common ground, and they had great respect for one another."

"Even facing illness and death he never stopped fighting for the causes which were his life's work. I am proud to have counted him as a friend and proud that the United Kingdom recognized his service earlier this year with the award of an honorary knighthood." — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Whatever his national standing, Kennedy was unbeatable in Massachusetts. He won his first election in 1962, filling out the unexpired portion of his brother's term. He won an eighth term in 2006. Kennedy served close to 47 years, longer than all but two senators in history: Robert Byrd of West Virginia (50 years and counting) and the late Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who died after a tenure of nearly 47 1/2 years.

Born in 1932, the youngest of Joseph and Rose Kennedy's nine children, Edward Moore Kennedy was part of a family bristling with political ambition, beginning with maternal grandfather John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, a congressman and mayor of Boston.

Round-cheeked Teddy was thrown out of Harvard in 1951 for cheating, after arranging for a classmate to take a freshman Spanish exam for him. He eventually returned, earning his degree in 1956.

He went on to the University of Virginia Law School, and in 1962, while his brother John was president, announced plans to run for the Senate seat JFK had vacated in 1960. A family friend had held the seat in the interim because Kennedy was not yet 30, the minimum age for a senator.

Kennedy was immediately involved in a bruising primary campaign against state Attorney General Edward J. McCormack, a nephew of U.S. House Speaker John W. McCormack.

"If your name was simply Edward Moore, your candidacy would be a joke," chided McCormack.

Kennedy won the primary by 300,000 votes and went on to overwhelmingly defeat Republican George Cabot Lodge, son of the late Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, in the general election.

Devastated by his brothers' assassinations and injured in a 1964 plane crash that left him with back pain that would plague him for decades, Kennedy temporarily withdrew from public life in 1968. But he re-emerged in 1969 to be elected majority whip of the Senate.

Then came Chappaquiddick.

Kennedy still handily won re-election in 1970, but he lost his leadership job. He remained outspoken in his opposition to the Vietnam War and support of social programs but ruled out a 1976 presidential bid.

In the summer of 1978, a Gallup Poll showed that Democrats preferred Kennedy over President Carter 54 percent to 32 percent. A year later, Kennedy decided to run for the White House with a campaign that accused Carter of turning his back on the Democratic agenda.

The difficult task of dislodging a sitting president was compounded by Kennedy's fumbling answer to a question posed by CBS' Roger Mudd: Why do you want to be president?

"Well, it's um, you know you have to come to grips with the different issues that, ah, we're facing," Kennedy said. "I mean, we can, we have to deal with each of the various questions of the economy, whether it's in the area of energy ..."

Long afterward, he said, "Well, I learned to lose, and for a Kennedy that's hard." Kennedy married Virginia Joan Bennett, known as Joan, in 1958. They divorced in 1982. In 1992, he married Washington lawyer Victoria Reggie. His survivors include a daughter, Kara Kennedy Allen; two sons, Edward Jr. and Patrick, a congressman from Rhode Island; and two stepchildren, Caroline and Curran Raclin.

Edward Jr. lost a leg to bone cancer in 1973 at age 12. Kara had a cancerous tumor removed from her lung in 2003. In 1988, Patrick had a noncancerous tumor pressing on his spine removed. He has also struggled with depression and addiction and announced in June that he was re-entering rehab.

Kennedy's memoir, "True Compass," is set to be published in the fall.

___

On the Net:

Kennedy's office: http://kennedy.senate.gov


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obit_ted_kennedy;_ylt=AglxRA7LJ4PbUxG53cWfPYJH2 ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTJtZWlzbnRoBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwODI2L 3VzX29iaXRfdGVkX2tlbm5lZHkEY3BvcwMxBHBvcwMxBHNlYwN 5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDa2VubmVkeWNhbGxl

[wind149]

No we didn't!! The Kennedy family was always self serving, they amassed their fortune by ill gotten gains, namely, bootleg liquor and this does not make for them to be worthy of the status this dsyfunctional family holds! Sorry, I can't feel bad that this man died. Now his brothers were murdered, but they too were not without strange bed fellows and John chased anything in a skirt? The Kennedy's got away with lots of crap because everyone bought into that "Camelot" crap and they are "royalty" and they are anything but? No one could ever get me to forgive Ted for the Chappaquiddick incident because he murdered that young woman, Mary Jo, he was drunk, loses control of his car, plunges off the bridge and has his lawyer pick him up and bring him home and this cretin WAITED 6 HOURS before calling the cops to report the accident and that girl drowned as he NEVER tried to save her, all he gave a crap about what saving his own political ass and how would it look of the great Senator Kennedy was caught driving drunk with a young PREGNANT WOMAN in his car?

That child was HIS! And he is never charged with anything and had that been some poor guy, he would have gone to jail. So forgive me if I can't muster up any sadness for a man who thought only of himself that night and as far as what he has done as a Senator was self serving too, he knew exactly what to say every time he hit the campaign trail, what the people wanted to hear and once he was re-elected he forgot all about what he promised, he drove his own wife to drink and she got picked up by the police on the Vineyard numerous times for drunk driving but because she was part of "royalty", they shined on aboutt the first 10 DWI incidents till she slammed into a tree after almost hitting a child on a bike, then they did arrest her a few times and she was in and out of rehab till she finally divorced Ted and got sober in the process. And he would always promise this and that for the little people and nothing was ever done for them because you figure a lot of mentally ill homeless people are not going to vote, no, he always championed his causes based on who would vote for him the most?

No, the Kennedy family has always looked out for their own asses, his own nephew was charged with a brutal rape and of course beat the charges, His son was picked up wasted on Ambien and claimed to have "sleep walked" and hit a traffic barrier in DC and that could have been a person and then when it hits the media, then he does what so many politicians do, hide behind the walls of a rehab, come out 28 days later and tells the press that he is cured and lays the same I am sorry crap story on them and because he is a Kennedy we are supposed to accept this as the truth? How many of them has had drug and alcohol issues?? My adoptive father hates the Kennedy's, he calls them, "White Trash with Money" and always has these words of wisdom about them and how true it is!! "A Kennedy has his hand in a cookie jar. A man comes up to him and asks, what are you doing? And a Kennedy will always say, this it is not what it looks like"

This is how they have lived their lives and people who have always bought into the whole Camelot thing, believes that this family has a curse upon them because of how so many of them died or were charged with crimes or went to rehab and IMO, it is because what comes around, goes around and all the mother of this crew did was go to the Catholic church and play with her rosary beads and look the other way. The old man bootlegged whiskey and that is how parlayed their fortune??? I have personally seen Old Teddy lushing it up like there was no tomorrow at the Cape. We liked to go to this one restaurant/bar for our Sea Breezes (the drink) as well as the sea breezes they have an awesome deck and a killer view but it was hot that day so we opted for the bar. We order drinks and we see him come toddling through the door and he sits down with a guy we recognize as a sports reporter from a Boston TV station and starts knocking back scotch! After awhile as the whole place is checking him out and comments are floating all over the place as it was packed for happy hour by then, he gets up and lurches to the bathroom and he had to catch himself from taking a digger by grabbing a hold of the wall and I could not resist I said to no one in particular, "Well there goes the hard-working, hard-drinking Democratic Darling Senator Ted Kennedy, anyone here want to buy him another drink"?

The guy from the TV station gives me a filthy look like how dare I say that and everyone cracks up and wants to buy US a drink!! Our waiter who is an awesome lad, we always hope is working when we go there because he is one of those jaded dudes, been there 20 plus year and tells us funny stories about customers and we always would give him huge tips and he LOL big time and tells us he hates waiting on any Kennedy because they are lousy tippers and you are supposed to kiss the hem of their garments and give them anything they want and usually on the house and here they are getting hooked up with free food and drink and they give Jason $3? Kennedy hears what I said from the reporter and turns around and gives me this goofy grin, apparently he thought I was being funny and guess what TED? I wasn't, I was as sarcastic as I could be without calling him an out and out lush to his face!!! SO I have seen how this guy behaves and while I never wish cancer on anyone, he got what was coming to him in the end for murdering Mary Jo and his unborn child.

Now John Junior I did like because he tried to live as normal a life as he could and did not make public spectacles of himself and graduated from Harvard and went on to own a political magazine and did champion causes for the little people without thinking how great that looks for any future political plans, he started a program in MA for heating costs for people who did not qualify for the usual assistance programs because they were working and made too much money and I am willing to bet most of the money came out of his own pocket and in his case, that was self made money. His sister Caroline has also done good, she has always managed to stay out of the limelight and raised her children right, none of them have been picked up for DWI or rape? Now it was horrible how John, his wife and sister died, but he was a Kennedy and they do things their way and he had not bothered to learn the instrument panel in his plane and was flying that plane that night on visual only and that was his downfall because the water is always warm at the Cape, especially in the months of June and July and it's hazy there and while he hugged the coast of LI, he got a false visual, what he thought was Martha's Vineyard was actually water and haze on the horizon and he was trying to approach and at a low altitude and it was too late for him to pull up on the yoke therefore aborting the landing and he crashed into the sea.

Now someone would say that his death would be part of their "curse" but it's clear case of a Kennedy going to do exactly how he pleased and it cost big bucks to bring him and his plane out of the drink and I wondered who picked up the tab because besides the Coast Guard, there were Naval ships with sonar and private vessels, close friends of the Kennedy's looking too and they all died from blunt force trauma from hitting the ocean at about 200 knots. And his sister inherited even more money. Now Jackie was a class act and I could never figure out why she marred Onassis as he was homely as a hedge fence, but then I figured out that it was all about money and in the same "social circle", she could not simply marry a garage mechanic, how would that look? So she married him to keep her name valid in the snob society? I am sure that people are going to disagree with me and that is cool, but I refuse to be a hypocrite.

[samanthajane13]

Ted Kennedy: Family senator, patriarch, dead at 77
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent David Espo, Ap Special Correspondent – 38 mins ago

WASHINGTON – In the quiet of a Capitol elevator, one of Edward M. Kennedy's fellow lawmakers asked whether he had plans for a family Thanksgiving away from the nation's capital. No, the Massachusetts senator said with a shake of his head, and mentioned something about visiting his brothers' gravesites at Arlington National Cemetery.

In his half-century in the public glare, Kennedy was, above all, heir to a legacy — as well as a hero to liberals, a foil to conservatives, a legislator with few peers.

Alone of the Kennedy men of his generation, he lived to comb gray hair, as the Irish poet had it. It was a blessing and a curse, as he surely knew, and assured that his defeats and human foibles as well as many triumphs played out in public at greater length than his brothers ever experienced.

He was the only Kennedy brother to run for the White House and lose. His brother John was president when he was assassinated in 1963 a few days before Thanksgiving; Robert fell to a gunman in mid-campaign five years later. An older brother, Joseph Jr., was killed piloting a plane in World War II.

Runner-up in a two-man race for the Democratic nomination in 1980, this Kennedy closed out his failed candidacy with a speech that brought tears to the eyes of many in a packed Madison Square Garden.

"For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end," he said. "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die."

He was 48, older than any of his brothers at the time of their deaths. He lived nearly three more decades, before succumbing to a brain tumor late Tuesday at age 77.

_____

That convention speech was a political summons, for sure. But to what?

Kennedy made plans to run for president again in 1984 before deciding against it. By 1988, his moment had passed and he knew it.

He turned his public energies toward his congressional career, now judged one of the most accomplished in the history of the Senate.

"I'm a Senate man and a leader of the institution," he said more than a year ago in an Associated Press interview. He left his imprint on every major piece of social legislation to pass Congress over a span of decades. Health care, immigration, civil rights, education and more. Republicans and Democrats alike lamented his absence as they struggled inconclusively in recent months with President Barack Obama's health care legislation.

He was in the front ranks of Democrats in 1987 who torpedoed one of President Ronald Reagan's Supreme Court nominees. "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, children could not be taught about evolution," he said at the time.

It was a single sentence that catalogued many of the issues he — and Democrats — devoted their careers to over the second half of the 20th century.

A postscript: More than a decade later, President Clinton nominated a former Kennedy aide, Stephen Breyer, to the high court. He was confirmed easily.

_____

There were humiliations along the way, drinking and womanizing, coupled with the triumphs that the Kennedy image-makers were always polishing. After the 1980 presidential campaign, Camelot took another hit when he divorced. He later remarried, happily.

In later years came grumbling from fellow Democrats that his political touch had failed him, and that he was too eager to strike a deal with President George W. Bush on education and Medicare.

"I believe a president can make a difference," he said over and over in that campaign of 1980, at a time the country was suffering from crushing combination of high interest rates, inflation and unemployment.

But it wasn't necessary to be a president to make a difference, or to try.

He once startled a Republican senator's aide, tracking her down by phone in Poland, part of an attempt to complete a bipartisan compromise.

For years, he left the Capitol once a week to read to a student at a nearby public school as part of a literacy program.

When a longtime Senate reporter fell terminally ill, Kennedy dispatched one of his watercolors to her room in a nursing home, and cheered her with chatty phone calls.

_____

Kennedy took up painting in earnest after a plane crash that broke his back in the mid-1960s and led to a lengthy convalescence. Much of his work hangs in his Senate office, several seascapes or images of sailboats of the type he piloted in the waters off Cape Cod.

The walls of other rooms are filled with political and personal memorabilia, family photographs or letters or some combination of the two that hint at the passage of time and power.

In one room hangs a photo showing Kennedy and his siblings and parents in a family portrait taken in the 1930s, at a time their father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was U.S. ambassador to England.

In another hangs a plaque from the USS John F. Kennedy, the Navy vessel commissioned in 1968 and named for the slain president.

In another, the letter he wrote his mother, Rose, teasingly accusing her of having covered up a deficiency in math. No, she wrote back firmly in pencil, she always got an A.

Elsewhere, this:

"To Dad. Thank you for helping me get ahold of that first rung," wrote his son, Patrick, after winning a seat in the Rhode Island Legislature in 1990. The parent had dispatched aides to Providence to help assure victory for the child, now an eighth-term member of Congress.

_____

There were other, far more public ways that Kennedy became the family standard bearer.

Robert Kennedy had spoken of the assassinated president at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Four years later, he, too, was dead, and this time the last surviving brother delivered the eulogy.

"My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life," his voice trembled at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. "He should be remembered simply as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

A generation later, John Kennedy Jr., who had been a toddler when his father was in the White House, died in a small plane crash off Martha's Vineyard. This eulogy invoked the words of William Butler Yeats, the poet: "We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair. But like his father, he had every gift but the gift of years."

_____


Continued...

[samanthajane13]

"Thank you my friend for your many courtesies. If the world only knew," reads a letter hanging on one wall of the office. It came from Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, once the Senate's top Republican.

As the most prominent liberal of his day, Kennedy was long an easy and popular target for Republicans. The automobile accident that resulted in the death of a young Pennsylvania woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, drew snickers both before and after it shadowed his presidential campaign in 1980. Kennedy was driving the car in the accident at Chappaquiddick.

It is a cliche, yet true, that if his name was invaluable in Democratic fundraising, conservatives long ago discovered they could generate cash simply by telling donors they were doing battle with Kennedy.

Kennedy understood that, and knew how to turn it to his own advantage.

When a Moral Majority fundraising appeal somehow arrived at his office one day in the early 1980s, word leaked to the public, and the conservative group issued an invitation for him to come to Liberty Baptist College if he was ever in the neighborhood.

Pleased to accept, was the word from Kennedy.

"So I told Jerry (Falwell) and he almost turned white as a sheet," said Cal Thomas, then an aide to the conservative leader.

Dinner at the Falwell home was described as friendly.

Dessert was a political sermon on tolerance, delivered by the liberal from Massachusetts.

"I believe there surely is such a thing as truth, but who among us can claim a monopoly?" Kennedy said from the podium that night. "There are those who do, and their own words testify to their intolerance."

_____

More than a quarter-century later, he was still eager to make a difference. At a critical point in the 2008 presidential race, he endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, then embarked on an ambitious schedule of campaign appearances.

He cast his endorsement in terms that linked Obama to the Kennedys.

"There was another time, when another young candidate was running for president and challenging America to cross a new frontier," he said.

"He faced criticism from the preceding Democratic president, who was widely respected in the party," Kennedy said.

"And John Kennedy replied: 'The world is changing. The old ways will not do. ... It is time for a new generation of leadership.'"

_____

That endorsement came a few months before the seizure that signaled the presence of a deadly brain tumor. There were memorable public moments ahead, a surprise visit to the Senate to cast the decisive vote on a Medicare bill and, before that, a turn at the podium at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

"As I look ahead, I am strengthened by family and friendship," he said there last summer. "So many of you have been with me in the happiest days and the hardest days. Together we have known success and seen setbacks, victory and defeat.

"But we have never lost our belief that we are all called to a better country and a newer world," he said. "And I pledge to you, I pledge to you that I will be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate when we begin the great test."

His time in the Senate was growing short, though. He smiled broadly as he took his seat outdoors at Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20, then suffered a seizure a few hours later at a luncheon inside the capitol.

"He was there when the Voting Rights Act passed" in the mid-1960s, the nation's first black president said moments later in his remarks. "And so I would be lying to you if I did not say that right now a part of me is with him. And I think that's true for all of us."

_____

Generations of aides recall Kennedy telling them the biggest mistake of his career was turning down a deal that President Richard M. Nixon offered for universal health care. It seemed not generous enough at the time. Having missed the opportunity then, Kennedy spent the rest of his career hoping for an elusive second chance.

Now, some Democrats wonder privately if the party can learn from that lesson, and take what is achievable rather than risk everything by reaching for what it uncertain. Republicans and Democrats alike say Kennedy's absence has affected the debate on Obama's signature issue, with unknown consequences.

"We would've been able to put (health care) together" had Kennedy been present, conservative Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told reporters Wednesday. The two men developed a unique friendship as both political opponents and allies for three decades.

Health care was the issue that motivated Kennedy even after he was no longer able to travel to the Capitol to cast a vote. He called it "the cause of my life."

In July, in a reflection on his own mortality, he worried that his precarious health might mean Massachusetts would have only one senator for a brief while, and Democrats would be handicapped as they tried to pass health care legislation.

After 47 years in the Senate — in a seat held by his brother before him — Kennedy urged a change in state law so the governor could appoint a temporary replacement "should a vacancy occur."

On Wednesday, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said he would support that change.

__

AP reporter Brock Vergakis contributed to this story from Salt Lake City.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090826/ap_on_go_co/us_kennedy_essay

[samanthajane13]

Kennedy memoir ready for release
By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer Hillel Italie, Ap National Writer – 1 hr 38 mins ago

NEW YORK – Sen. Edward Kennedy did not live to see his dream of universal health care passed, but he did complete a cherished and more personal project: his memoir.

"True Compass," the greatly awaited summation of his life and career, comes out Sept. 14 with an announced first printing of 1.5 million copies. Kennedy, diagnosed with a brain tumor in May 2008, just months after his book deal was announced, died Tuesday night at age 77.

"He worked valiantly to finish the book and make it the best it could be," publisher Twelve, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group, said in a statement. "As always, he was true to his word. The result is a great and inspiring legacy to readers everywhere, a case study in perseverance."

By late Wednesday morning, "True Compass" was in the top 75 on Amazon.com.

Kennedy collaborated with Ron Powers, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-author of "Flags of Our Fathers," but "every word" is Kennedy's, according to his literary representative, Robert Barnett.

"Happily and amazingly, he was in good enough shape to finish it," said Barnett, a Washington attorney whose clients include President Obama and former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. "It's his book. He wrote and approved every word."

Barnett said he had known Kennedy since the 1970s and for years had discussed a possible memoir. In 2007, Kennedy was ready.

"He told me that he very much wanted to tell his story, not so much because of him, but because of his family, his kids, the causes he championed and fought for," Barnett said Wednesday. "I've found over the years that people who write these types of books just come to a point where they say, `Now's the time.'"

Well before he started his memoir, Kennedy was collecting his thoughts. According to Twelve publisher Jonathan Karp, Kennedy had been keeping a personal journal since John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign. In 2004, he began an oral history project through the Miller Center of the University of Virginia and incorporated that material into his book, for which he reportedly received $8 million-$9 million.

Publication was originally planned for 2010, then moved up to October and finally to Sept. 14.

"It got done faster and better than expected, so it was moved up," Barnett said. "And, of course, many of us hoped he would live to see the celebration that will surround the publication."

Kennedy's other books include "America Back on Track," published in 2006, and a children's story, "My Senator and Me: A Dog's Eye View of Washington," also released three years ago. Each have sold 11,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks around 75 percent of industry sales.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090826/ap_en_ot/us_kennedy_memoir

[samanthajane13]

Kennedy's cancer puts focus on quality of life
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione, Ap Medical Writer – 22 mins ago

He lived 15 months with an incurable brain tumor, a little longer than usual for a patient in his late 70s. Perhaps equally important is that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy lived those months well — able to work almost to the end, to sail the choppy New England waters he adored, to help elect a president he supported, and even to give him a dog.

Time is important to any cancer patient. Quality of life, not just how much life they can squeeze out, is increasingly the focus for people with a terminal illness, cancer specialists say. It also is one of the chief goals of treatments for brain tumors, since these therapies typically do not buy much time.

"The advances that we've made in prolonging survival aren't as big as we've liked them to be, but people have stayed at a good quality of life right up to the end," said Dr. Matthew Ewend, neurosurgery chief at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Even after treatments can no longer control tumor growth for patients, "we can usually keep their quality of life pretty good with medicines for brain swelling, and then the end is usually pretty graceful," Ewend said.

There is much to be admired in how Kennedy spent his final months, said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

"This is a man who had a serious and fatal illness and he knew that. Despite his illness, he carried on as best he could," Lichtenfeld said.

He noted that celebrities "are public representatives of millions of people who deal with these issues on a daily basis." When one gets recommended treatments and is able to live life to its fullest, it gives hope to other patients, Lichtenfeld said.

Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant glioma, a cancerous brain tumor, after suffering a seizure at his home in May 2008. He had surgery two weeks later, followed by chemotherapy with the drug Temodar during and after radiation, his family has said.

Cancer specialists say he also likely received Avastin, a newer drug aimed at depriving the tumor of its blood supply. Avastin recently won federal approval for treating brain tumors that recur after standard treatment. It is made by Genentech, which recently was acquired by Swiss-based Roche.

Kennedy's doctors have declined to comment on specifics and did not respond to interview requests Wednesday.

Median survival for the type of tumor Kennedy is believed to have had is 12 to 15 months, but the range is wide, said Dr. Mark Gilbert, a brain tumor expert at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Gilbert is leading an international study of 1,200 patients testing intensive Temodar therapy to see if that can improve survival. Results are expected next year. Temodar is made by Schering-Plough Corp.

"Treatments are keeping the cancer under control for a longer time," Gilbert said. Without the tumor continuing to grow, patients "maintain their function and with that, their quality of life," he said.

Even though survival time remains grim, it has improved, said Dr. Steve Brem, neurosurgery chief at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla.

"Only a few years ago, it used to be about nine months," Brem said. Gliomas are so invasive — spreading tentacles into the brain in a way that all cannot be removed with surgery — that they usually cannot be cured, he explained.

Treatments besides Temodar that might improve the odds are in testing now: several experimental drugs, an experimental vaccine that prods the immune system to fight the cancer, and a radioactive "homing device" that helps a cancer drug reach tumors deep in the brain.

However, much more research is needed to make meaningful gains, said a statement from the International Brain Tumour Alliance, a British-based international support and advocacy group.

Each year 200,000 people worldwide develop a malignant brain tumor "and there has been only a minimal improvement in new therapies in the past 30 years," the statement says.

Cancer research is a cause Kennedy championed long before his illness, the cancer society's chief executive, John Seffrin, said in a statement.

Kennedy helped overhaul the 1971 National Cancer Act, "rein in the tobacco industry" with a bill giving the federal Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco products, and backed expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program with an increase in the tobacco tax, the statement said.

For these and other achievements, he was given the Society's Medal of Honor and National Distinguished Advocacy Award.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090826/ap_on_re_us/us_med_kennedy_cancer

[samanthajane13]

World leaders pay tribute to Kennedy
By MAIREAD FLYNN, Associated Press Writer Mairead Flynn, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 44 mins ago

DUBLIN – Nowhere outside of America has the Kennedy legacy been more deeply felt than in Ireland, where photographs of the family adorn homes and hundreds claim to be distant relations of the glittering dynasty that brought the first Roman Catholic to the White House.

Here, Senator Edward Kennedy is largely known as JFK's brother. But he was also a power broker who mobilized Irish Americans and their political views on Northern Ireland — a kingmaker whose actions in the years before the Good Friday peace talks served to lay the groundwork for a lasting accord.

"He lived to see two great chasms bridged, between Catholic and Protestant in Northern Ireland and between black and white in his own United States," former Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said. "These achievements, which were the dreams imagined by his brothers in his youth, were the legacy of a long life and of a good and great man."

Initially a strong supporter of the Irish nationalist cause, Kennedy was a key American promoter of the peace process, urging Britain to negotiate with the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party, and also reaching out to Protestant Unionists.

David Owen, who served as British foreign secretary in the 1970s, said Kennedy put his weight behind peace in Northern Ireland even at the risk of alienating powerful Irish-American allies whose sympathies lay with the province's Catholic Irish nationalists rather than the British Protestant majority.

"His influence on the peace process, and his influence on successive American presidents was I think absolutely crucial, and in particular of course on President (Bill) Clinton," Owen told the BBC.

The senator from Massachusetts inspired praise from leaders of nations and campaigners for human rights, and many expressed sadness at learning of his death Tuesday from a brain tumor.

In Britain, where Kennedy received a knighthood earlier this year, he was praised for his indefatigable work on causes such as health care and judicial reform. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that, "even facing illness and death, he never stopped fighting."

Achmat Dangor, CEO of the Nelson Mandela Foundation in South Africa, said Kennedy had been "a champion of democracy and civil rights."

"He made his voice heard in the struggle against apartheid at a time when the freedom struggle was not widely supported in the West," the foundation said. "We remain grateful for his role."

In Australia, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Kennedy "made an extraordinary contribution to American politics." German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced "deep sorrow" at his death. In Italy, President Giorgio Napolitano said Kennedy "deserves the homage of all the free world."

It was in the country that lionized his family that his work left perhaps its most lasting legacy. Nigel Baker, director of the American Institute at Oxford University, said Kennedy worked for a long time in Northern Ireland with other Irish American legislators to find common ground — despite the unwillingness of some in the Unionist and Republican communities to engage in dialogue.

"Much of the work he did was behind the scenes," Baker said. "But he was remarkably effective in building bridges there, as he was in the United States. He did a lot of work in private conversation with key players in Northern Ireland politics and I suspect that his role in Northern Ireland is probably more important in the long run than is generally acknowledged."

One of Kennedy's key moves in the peace process came when the United States was considering a visa for Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army.

By the end of 1993, the IRA was signaling it would be prepared to end its violent campaign. Political leaders like Kennedy gambled that bringing Adams to the U.S. would help bring about a cease-fire. Clinton was persuaded — and the gamble became a breakthrough, with a cease fire in August 1994.

"What he managed to do, long before the 1990s, was bring together successful Irish Americans and get them involved in what he would regard as a more constructive approach to northern Irish politics," said Michael Cox, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics.

The Good Friday accord came into force in 1998. As the years dragged on, the painstakingly negotiated deal began to fall apart when the IRA refused to renounce crime or to permit photos of its disarmament.

The group was accused of mounting the world's largest bank robbery, taking part in the slaying of a Catholic man, Robert McCartney in Belfast and laundering millions annually in criminal proceeds.

Kennedy put his foot down, refusing to meet with Adams when he traveled to the United States in 2005 to seek support from Irish-American activists.

The signal, combined with other high-profile slights, was unmistakable. Sinn Fein was deeply embarrassed because of Kennedy's stature. Faced with losing support among Irish Americans, they began again to participate in the peace process.

"I wouldn't underestimate the importance of the Irish American opinion in the peace process." said Adrian Guelke, professor of comparative politics at Queen's University Belfast.

_____

Associated Press Writers Karolina Tagaris, Meera Selva, Danica Kirka and Jill Lawless contributed to this story.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090826/ap_on_go_co/kennedy_world

[samanthajane13]

Who will succeed Kennedy? Speculative list is long
By STEVE LeBLANC, Associated Press Writer Steve Leblanc, Associated Press Writer – Wed Aug 26, 5:27 pm ET

BOSTON – For the first time in nearly half a century, Massachusetts voters will be handed ballots for the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Edward Kennedy without his name on them.

The long list of potential candidates to replace him in the seat once held by President John F. Kennedy includes congressmen, former prosecutors and, perhaps, one of Edward Kennedy's nephews.

Kennedy's death leaves little mourning time for the dozen or more Senate hopefuls who face a five-month dash to election day.

State law requires a special election no sooner than 145 days and no later than 160 days after a vacancy occurs. The law bans an interim appointee. In this case, the election must be held either the last two weeks of January or the first week of February.

Primaries must be held six weeks before the special election, giving Democratic and Republican candidates little more than three months to campaign for their party's nomination.

"That is a very short period of time to be able to mount an attempt to garner one of these precious seats," said Paul Watanabe, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. The tight window will favor candidates with name recognition and hefty campaign war chests, he added.

An open senate seat in Massachusetts is a rare political prize. Kennedy held his seat for 47 years. Fellow Democrat Sen. John Kerry was elected in 1984.

"No one will replace Ted Kennedy in their first year, but Democrats at least want someone who reflects his basic policy positions," said Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.

Despite speculation that Kennedy's wife, Vicki, could assume his Senate seat, family aides have said she is not interested in replacing her husband.

One of Kennedy's nephews, former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, has also been suggested as a candidate. He heads Citizens Energy, a nonprofit that distributes discounted heating oil to the poor, and has been criticized in recent years for accepting oil from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Other potential Democratic contenders include state Attorney General Martha Coakley, who would be the first woman elected to the Senate from Massachusetts. She has a high profile and statewide recognition, but would need to raise money quickly.

Several congressmen have also been mentioned, including Reps. Stephen Lynch, Michael Capuano, Edward Markey, James McGovern and William Delahunt.

While each has a federal campaign account, they are better known in their districts and differ in ideology. Lynch from the South Boston neighborhood of Boston, is more socially conservative compared to Capuano, a liberal from the blue collar city of Somerville.

One former Democratic member of Congress, Martin Meehan, has also been named as a potential candidate. Now chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Meehan still has nearly $5 million in his federal account.

Republicans face an even tougher climb in a state that leans heavily Democratic.

Potential candidates include Cape Cod businessman Jeff Beatty, former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan, state Sen. Scott Brown, and Chris Egan, former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Cooperation and Development.

In a recent letter to lawmakers, Kennedy said the special election law should be changed to allow the governor to appoint someone to serve in the Senate during the course of the election — provided that person pledges not to run for the seat.

"It is vital for this Commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election," Kennedy wrote.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Patrick called the proposal "a reasonable idea" and said he would sign the bill if it reached his desk.

"Right now, Massachusetts needs two voices in the U.S. Senate," Patrick said.

Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Robert DeLeo, both Democrats, haven't said whether they back the change. DeLeo said there would likely be a public hearing on the issue within the next month.

Without the change, Senate Democrats could fall one vote short on any health care overhaul legislation this fall. Health care had been Kennedy's core issue for decades.

Before Kennedy's death, Democrats held a potentially filibuster-proof margin in the Senate, but some moderate Democrats have been wavering. Another Democrat, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, has been seriously ill and often absent.

The succession law was changed in 2004, when Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., became his party's presidential nominee and Republican Mitt Romney was the state's governor. Democratic lawmakers changed the law to block Romney from installing a Republican to serve until the next general election.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090826/ap_on_go_co/us_kennedy_successor

[samanthajane13]

Kennedy's absence leaves Senate void of dealmaker
By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer Laurie Kellman, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 55 mins ago

WASHINGTON – In an era of bitter political division, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's death silenced a singular voice of bipartisanship at a time when colleagues are struggling with angry constituents and each other over an elusive plan to overhaul the nation's health care system.

Some lawmakers said Tuesday the current stalemate is the result of Kennedy's absence for the past few, crucial months. Some hope to rescue the embattled legislation as his legacy.

It's not clear that the post-Kennedy Senate includes anyone with the credibility among ideological opponents, the dealmaking skills or the inside knowledge to strike a quick agreement.

"There is nobody else like him," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who alternated with Kennedy over the years as chairman and ranking minority-party member of the health committee. "If he had been physically up to it and been engaged on this, we probably would have an agreement by now."

"Teddy was the only Democrat who could move their whole base," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said. "If he finally agreed, the whole base would come along even if they didn't like it."

Kennedy lost the fight he couldn't win Tuesday, to brain cancer at 77. But he had won countless others by embodying an increasingly rare type of bipartisanship — the kind perceived not as a threat to ideology or fundraising prowess, but as a way of getting something done, however imperfect.

"Bipartisanship takes a person that has leadership and personal charm, quite frankly, and a desire to get a result," said former Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi. "He didn't try to destroy you. That's what's happening in Washington now. It's gotten so mean."

Over 47 years in the Senate, Kennedy evolved into an institution himself, equal parts liberal icon and dealmaker who combined those skills to forge agreement on some of the most sweeping and controversial social legislation of his time.

Kennedy worked out an agreement with President George W. Bush on the No Child Left Behind Act. He regularly worked with Hatch, notably on a federally funded program for those with HIV/AIDS, health insurance for lower-income children and tax breaks to encourage the development of medicines for rare diseases.

When he compromised, Kennedy's base may have grumbled but did not question his fidelity to liberal principles. Republicans trusted him to be straight with them in tough negotiations and not make it personal. And no one questioned his knowledge of Senate procedure, rivaling even West Virginia's Robert C. Byrd, who no longer plays a big role in Senate business.

Without Kennedy, the 99-member chamber lacks anyone playing precisely his role doling out the goodwill and procedural expertise necessary to make the Senate wheels spin through controversial legislation. The Democratic caucus falls from an effective supermajority of 60, enough to kill Republican filibusters, to 59, including two independents.

No one is irreplaceable in the Senate, or so a popular saying goes. But John McCain, R-Ariz., called Kennedy just that in a statement Wednesday. McCain, last year the GOP presidential nominee, was even clearer over the weekend.

"He had a way of sitting down with the parties at a table and making the right concessions, which really are the essence of successful negotiations," McCain said on ABC's "This Week."

"It's huge that he's absent," McCain added. If Kennedy had been engaged in the debate past June, when he handed his committee chairmanship duties to Chris Dodd, D-Conn., "I think the health care reform might be in a very different place today."

Democrats widely mourned Kennedy's passing on personal and political grounds and urged their colleagues to adopt Kennedy's big-picture view of the world generally and health care specifically. There was talk Wednesday of honoring Kennedy within the Capitol, possibly by posting his portrait in the Senate Reception Room with the likenesses of other senators hailed for their bipartisan accomplishments.

"My hope is that this will maybe cause people to take a breath, step back and start talking with each other again in more civil tones about what needs to be done, because that's what Teddy would do," said Dodd, Kennedy's close friend who has taken a lead role on health care negotiations and is, himself, battling prostate cancer.

"We all share the same principles. How you get there is complicated, but that's what Senator Kennedy dedicated his life to," Dodd added. "In his memory, I will do everything I can as long as I can stand in the United States Senate to help us achieve that goal."

Vice President Joe Biden, in a tearful salute to his friend, said Kennedy raised the level of discourse and senatorial behavior and in the course of rising from dark chapters of his own life embodied the most selfless human qualities.

"It was never about him ... he never was petty," Biden told reporters, recalling how Kennedy stood by him when the former senator's wife and child were killed in a car accident.

"I just hope we remember how he treated other people and how he made other people look at themselves and look at one another," Biden added. "That will be the truly fundamental, unifying legacy of Teddy Kennedy's life if that happens, and it will for a while at least in the Senate."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090826/ap_on_go_co/us_kennedy_impact

[samanthajane13]

Edward Kennedy remembered fondly in Ireland
By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer Jill Lawless, Associated Press Writer – Thu Aug 27, 6:59 am ET

DUBLIN – He was an American politician but an Irish hero.

In Ireland, Sen. Edward Kennedy is remembered as the man who helped bring prosperity to the south, peace to the divided north — and pride in an Irish-American success story.

"He was an Irishman in the corridors of Washington," said Luke McAdams, 35, a management consultant from Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

In the Kennedys, he said, Irish people saw a family that "always have half an eye toward Ireland in whatever they do."

The impact of the Kennedys is immense in a country where pictures of the family adorn thousands of homes and where many people have avidly followed the glamorous, tragic clan that — in John F. Kennedy — put the first Roman Catholic in the White House.

Edward Kennedy, who died Tuesday of brain cancer, was mourned by world leaders and ordinary citizens from Johannesburg to Rome. But the remembrances were especially strong in Ireland, the Kennedys' ancestral home.

"Farewell to the last Prince of Camelot," the front page of Thursday's Irish Independent newspaper blared.

The Kennedys did bring a touch of royal flair to the Irish Republic, their many visits a combination of homecoming and triumphal procession.

In Dublin, the verdict was nearly unanimous.

"He was a great friend of this country," said Gerry Keating, 69. It was hard to find anyone who would disagree, whether among the Guinness drinkers in a Dublin pub or within Ireland's political elite.

"Ted Kennedy knew and loved Ireland — its people, its music, its culture," said Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin. "As the embodiment of the Irish immigrant story, his special dedication to the peace process was unrivaled and deeply held."

Many here also speak warmly of Kennedy's sister, Jean Kennedy Smith, who was the U.S. ambassador to Ireland for five years under President Bill Clinton and played her own role in the Northern Ireland peace process.

While Edward Kennedy will forever be remembered as JFK's younger brother, he was also a power broker who mobilized Irish Americans and their political views on Northern Ireland — a kingmaker whose actions helped lay the groundwork for a lasting peace accord.

"He lived to see two great chasms bridged, between Catholic and Protestant in Northern Ireland and between black and white in his own United States," said former Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern.

President Mary McAleese said Kennedy would be remembered in Ireland "as a hugely important friend to this country during the very difficult times."

Kennedy was a strong supporter of the Irish nationalist cause, and in the 1970s called for British troops to leave Northern Ireland — to the immense annoyance of Britain. But he also condemned the violence of the Irish Republican Army — a stance not always popular with Irish Americans. Kennedy became a key American promoter of peace, urging Britain to negotiate with the IRA-linked party Sinn Fein as he also reached out to Protestant Unionists.

"Much of the work he did was behind the scenes," said Nigel Bowles, director of the American Institute at Oxford University. "But he was remarkably effective in building bridges there, as he was in the United States. He did a lot of work in private conversation with key players in Northern Ireland politics and I suspect that his role in Northern Ireland is probably more important in the long run than is generally acknowledged."

At several points, Kennedy's role in the peace process was decisive. One of his key moves came when the United States was considering a visa for Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, then considered a terrorist by Britain.

By the end of 1993, the IRA was signaling it would be prepared to end its violent campaign. Political leaders like Kennedy gambled that bringing Adams to the U.S. would help bring an end to the bloodshed. President Clinton was persuaded — and the gamble became a breakthrough, with a cease-fire in August 1994.

Such was his stature that Kennedy's actions took on deep symbolic importance. In 2005, he met the sisters of Robert McCartney, a Belfast man stabbed to death by IRA members, and very publicly snubbed Sinn Fein's Adams.

The signal, combined with other high-profile slights, embarrassed Sinn Fein and did much to convince them to re-engage with the flagging peace process.

In May 2007, Kennedy stood in Belfast alongside two bitter enemies — anti-Catholic firebrand Rev. Ian Paisley and former IRA commander Martin McGuinness — as they became first minister and deputy first minister of Northern Ireland's power-sharing administration.

McGuinness said it was an honor to have Kennedy there that day.

"We owe him a huge debt of gratitude for his dedication to the creation of a better society for everyone here," McGuinness said.

"I may not always have agreed with his politics but his commitment to nonviolence and to the success of devolved government was unquestionable," said Northern Ireland's current Protestant first minister, Peter Robinson.

South of the border, Kennedy encouraged American companies to invest in Ireland in the 1980s at a time when the country was still scarred by poverty and mass emigration. That investment helped turn Ireland into a "Celtic Tiger" of rising salaries and rapid growth.

Some American companies, including high-tech firms Microsoft and Intel, have stayed even though the global financial crisis has reversed Ireland's boom and left residents and companies struggling financially.

For many, though, the most important legacy of the Kennedys is more personal. Here was a family that, despite its wealth and power, Irish people could recognize: A large, noisy, close-knit Catholic clan.

"They were an Irish Catholic family who made it big," said Anne McNamara, enjoying a night out in Dublin with several of her sisters.

"There were eight of us," she added. "Growing up, your brothers and sisters are your friends. You can see that in the Kennedys — they looked out for each other."


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[samanthajane13]

Mourners gather in Mass. for Kennedy memorial
By DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press Writer Denise Lavoie, Associated Press Writer – 13 mins ago

BOSTON – Mourners lined up Thursday morning outside the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, where Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's body will lie in repose after traveling more than 70 miles from the Cape Cod home where he spent his final days.

Austin Howe, 15, a high school student from Laurel, Md., came with his father to see the museum and joined about 20 others before it opened its doors Thursday morning. Father and son planned to pay their respects to Kennedy after the statesman's body arrived in the afternoon.

"He is someone who made a difference," Howe said. "This is a person who served the people of Massachusetts and served the people of the United States."

His father, Scott Howe, 46, said he admired how Kennedy related to the people he served.

"He seemed to really care about his constituents," Scott Howe said. "The Kennedy family — despite the money they had — had a big streak of altruism."

Family members will attend a private Mass at Kennedy's Hyannis Port compound at noon, and the motorcade is scheduled to leave around an hour later. It will pass sites that were significant to the senator on the way to the library, which he helped develop, and his body will lie in repose there until Friday, a Senate office statement said.

At the end of a barricaded road leading to the Cape Cod compound, a bouquet of white and yellow lilies lay on the lawn of David Nylan's vacation rental, and a U.S. flag flew at half-staff in Kennedy's memory.

Nylan, 38, of Malden, said people have stopped near his house to leave flowers since Kennedy died Tuesday at age 77 after battling brain cancer. Some have asked Nylan and friends who are sharing the house to lead them down the road to view the Kennedy house.

"The Kennedys and Hyannis and the Cape, they just kind of go hand in hand," he said. "They're just a great family from around here, and people respect what they've done in office, and the good things they've done."

"Of course, they've had some black marks against them, but who hasn't?" he said.

On Main Street in downtown Hyannis, flags, flowers and personal notes lay at the base of a flagpole outside the John F. Kennedy Museum, where about two dozen people gathered.

Someone had placed an old Kennedy campaign sign with a new inscription: "God bless Ted, the last was first," referring to his ascension to political greatness after the untimely deaths of his two older brothers.

Several enlarged photos depicted events in Kennedy's life — meeting with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., reading to a schoolgirl. A rosary hung over a picture of Kennedy standing in his office.

Plans are being finalized for a private memorial service at the presidential library Friday evening and for the funeral Mass on Saturday morning at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica — commonly known as the Mission Church — in Boston's Mission Hill neighborhood. President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak at the funeral.

All of the living former presidents will also attend the funeral, said a person familiar with the arrangements who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release details.

Shortly before the Mass, 44 sitting senators and 10 former senators will be among a group of approximately 100 dignitaries who will pay their respects to Kennedy at the library before making their way to the cavernous basilica, built in 1878.

Included in the group is former U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh, of Indiana, who pulled Kennedy from the wreckage of a small plane that crashed near Springfield, Mass., in June 1964. The pilot and a legislative aide were killed, and Kennedy suffered a broken back.

Kennedy's favorite song, "The Impossible Dream" from the musical "Man of La Mancha," will be played at one of the services, according to the person familiar with the arrangements.

Thursday's motorcade is expected to go by St. Stephen's Church, where his mother, Rose, was baptized and her funeral Mass celebrated; cross the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, the Boston park that he helped create and that is named after his mother; and pass historic Faneuil Hall, where Boston Mayor Thomas Menino will ring the bell 47 times, once for each year Kennedy served in the Senate.

Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening near his slain brothers — former President Kennedy and former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy — at Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia.

___

Associated Press writer Ray Henry in Hyannis Port, Mass., contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090827/ap_on_re_us/us_kennedy_memorial

[samanthajane13]

Kennedy motorcade prepares to leave Cape Cod

HYANNIS PORT, Mass. – The flag-draped coffin carrying the body of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has been taken from the family home on Cape Cod for the trip to Boston.

The casket was loaded into a hearse in a motorcade that will follow a 70-mile route Thursday past sites of significance to Kennedy's life. The family gathered near the house to watch.

Hundreds of people are lining the route to watch the motorcade pass. It left after a private Mass in a room at the family home in Hyannis Port that overlooks the ocean.

It will end at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. His body will lie in repose there for two days with several hours of public visitation scheduled.

He is to be buried Saturday at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

(This version CORRECTS that the motorcade has not yet left.)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090827/ap_on_re_us/us_kennedy_memorial

[samanthajane13]

Mourners salute Kennedy: 'He was such a good man'
By RAY HENRY and DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press Writers Ray Henry And Denise Lavoie, Associated Press Writers – 34 mins ago

BOSTON – A motorcade carrying the body of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy passed miles of mourners Thursday as it proceeded from the Cape Cod home where he spent his final days to the presidential library in Boston bearing the name of one of his slain brothers.

Thousands of spectators gathered in Hyannis Port and Boston, clutching cameras, tissues and at least one flag of Ireland, the Kennedys' ancestral homeland. Motorists stopped their cars on overpasses, hoping to catch a glimpse. Crowds applauded and cheered as the motorcade rolled slowly through Boston.

Virginia Cain, 54, said she walked just under 2 miles from her summer home in Centerville to the roads leading to the Kennedy compound so she could witness history.

"I can remember where I was when President Kennedy died, and I'll remember where I was when the senator left Hyannis Port," she said.

The late senator's loved ones — including niece Caroline, daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, and son Patrick, a Rhode Island congressman — arrived before noon for a private Mass at the family compound in Hyannis Port.

Relatives watched afterward from near the house as the flag-draped casket was loaded into a hearse, then took turns touching the vehicle on the way to their cars. As the motorcade pulled away for the 70-mile trip to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Patrick Kennedy sat in the passenger seat of the hearse, near tears.

The motorcade passed several sites important to the senator on the way to the library, which he helped develop and where he will lie in repose until Friday, a Senate office statement said. By mid-afternoon, more than 100 people waited for the public viewing to begin at 6 p.m.

Ellen Freed, 58, of Brookline, arrived about 2:30 p.m. Freed, who is disabled because of epilepsy, credits Kennedy for her federally assisted housing.

"I live in a HUD building, and if it wasn't for Ted Kennedy, I would be homeless," she said.

James Jenner, a 28-year-old culinary student from Boston, placed the Red Sox cap he was wearing outside, where other mourners had left flowers, small American flags and a stuffed teddy bear with angel wings.

"It was Teddy's home team," Jenner said. "It just seemed appropriate to leave him the cap. It symbolizes everything that he loved about his home state and everything he was outside the Senate."

Trudy Murray, 86, a native of Ireland who later lived in England, said Kennedy helped her and her family get visas when they moved to the United States in 1969.

"I loved Ted Kennedy. I cried yesterday when I put on the TV and saw that he had passed away," said Murray, a retired nurse who now lives in Brockton.

"He made his mistakes, but I don't even want to hear them. I forgive all of them because he was such a good man," she said.

A private memorial service is planned at the library Friday evening and a funeral Mass on Saturday morning at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica — commonly known as the Mission Church — in Boston. President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak at the funeral.

All the living former presidents will also attend the funeral, said a person familiar with the arrangements who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release details.

Shortly before the Mass, 44 sitting senators and 10 former senators will be among a group of about 100 dignitaries paying their respects at the library before heading to the cavernous basilica.

Among them will be former U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh, of Indiana, who pulled Kennedy from the wreckage of a small plane that crashed near Springfield, Mass., in June 1964. The pilot and a legislative aide were killed, and Kennedy suffered a broken back.

Kennedy's favorite song, "The Impossible Dream" from the musical "Man of La Mancha," will be played at one of the services, according to the person familiar with the arrangements.

Thursday's motorcade went by St. Stephen's Church, where his mother, Rose, was baptized and her funeral Mass celebrated; crossed the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, the Boston park that he helped create and that is named after his mother; and passed historic Faneuil Hall, where the bell rang 47 times, once for each year Kennedy served in the Senate.

Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening near his slain brothers — former President Kennedy and former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy — at Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia.

___

Ray Henry reported from Hyannis Port. Also contributing was Associated Press writer Jeannie Nuss.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090827/ap_on_re_us/us_kennedy_memorial

[samanthajane13]

Sen. Kennedy's body begins final poignant tour
By STEVE LeBLANC, Associated Press Writer Steve Leblanc, Associated Press Writer – 2 mins ago

BOSTON – His life's journey ended, the body of Sen. Edward Kennedy traveled by motorcade Thursday from the family compound where he spent his last days, past the building where he opened his first office to the presidential library named for his slain brother.

Thousands of mourners assembled along the 70-mile route that was dotted with landmarks named for the Kennedys. The crowds gathered to bid farewell to the last of the family's brothers and mark the end of a national political chapter that was equal parts triumph and tragedy.

For many, it was hard to untangle Kennedy's larger-than-life role as statesman from his role as neighbor and local celebrity, whether he was taking a turn conducting the Boston Pops or throwing out the first pitch for the Red Sox.

"It was Teddy's home team. It just seemed appropriate to leave him the cap," said James Jenner, 28, placing a Sox cap he was wearing near the entrance to the library. "It symbolizes everything that he loved about his home state and everything he was outside the Senate."

The motorcade started its trip in Hyannis Port, at the Cape Cod home where Kennedy's family held a private Mass. Eighty-five Kennedy relatives traveled with the senator's body to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, where the Senate's third-longest-serving member will lie in repose.

Among those accompanying Kennedy were nieces Caroline, daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, and Maria Shriver, daughter of his late sister Eunice; and his son Patrick Kennedy, a Rhode Island congressman.

Before the motorcade departed, mourners crowded the end of the barricaded road leading to the family compound.

Virginia Cain, 54, said she walked 2 miles from her summer home in Centerville so she could watch the procession and witness history.

"I can remember where I was when President Kennedy died, and I'll remember where I was when the senator left Hyannis Port," she said.

A bouquet of white and yellow lilies lay on the lawn of David Nylan's vacation rental near the Kennedy home, where a U.S. flag flew at half-staff in Kennedy's memory.

"The Kennedys and Hyannis and the Cape, they just kind of go hand in hand," said Nylan, 38, who said people had been stopping near his house to leave flowers since Kennedy died late Tuesday.

On Main Street in downtown Hyannis, flags, flowers and personal notes lay at the base of a flagpole outside the John F. Kennedy Museum, where about two dozen people gathered.

Someone had placed an old Kennedy campaign sign with a new inscription: "God bless Ted, the last was first," referring to his ascension to political greatness after his two older brothers were assassinated.

Several enlarged photos showed events in Kennedy's life — meeting with Martin Luther King Jr., reading to a school girl. A rosary hung over a picture of Kennedy standing in his office.

Echoes of the Kennedy history were hard to miss as the motorcade traveled through the city.

Kennedy's wife, Vicki, put her hand over her heart as the procession rolled down Hanover Street in the North End neighborhood, past St. Stephen's Church, where his mother, Rose, was baptized and where Kennedy later eulogized her. The crowd applauded, and his niece Caroline and other family members acknowledged them with a wave from their cars.

"When a member of the Kennedy family passes, it's like family. It feels like family," said Jeanne Pagano, 54, who was on the sidewalk outside the church. "I really loved the man and the family. I loved them."

Joanne Caruso, of Newton, picked up her sons — 12-year-old Tonino and 9-year-old Christian Sarandrea — early from summer camp to say goodbye to Kennedy. The boys carried a photo of their father, Antonio, with Kennedy.

"We get to be a part of a historic history, a historical moment," Tonino said as they waited. "The day we went to see Mr. Kennedy."

After leaving the church, the motorcade traveled across the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway created by the Big Dig highway project, which Kennedy helped shepherd through the Senate. The park occupies the same stretch of land once dominated by an elevated expressway named after John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, Rose's father and a patriarch of the Kennedy-Fitzgerald clan.

Kennedy's motorcade then paused at Faneuil Hall, where the historic bell rang 47 times — once for each of Kennedy's years in the Senate.

From there the motorcade passed the Massachusetts Statehouse with its life-size statue of John F. Kennedy, which was accessible to tourists Thursday for the first time since just after the Sept. 11 attacks.

There, too, onlookers watched silently, waiting for the motorcade to turn and pass 122 Bowdoin Street, where Kennedy opened his first office as an assistant district attorney and where John Kennedy lived while running for Congress in 1946.

After passing by the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in the city's Government Center complex, the motorcade headed to the library, where Kennedy's body will remain until his Saturday funeral. Just before arriving at the museum, the motorcade passed the JFK stop on the city's subway system.

By Thursday evening, thousands of people were waiting in line to pay their respects at Kennedy's public viewing. Officials allowed mourners to enter in groups of 35 to 40 to file past Kennedy's closed casket.

Scott Howe, 46, and his 15-year-old son, Austin, from Laurel, Md., were among those gathering outside the library.

"He seemed to really care about his constituents," Scott Howe said. "The Kennedy family — despite the money they had, had a big streak of altruism."

The family planned an invitation-only private memorial service for Friday evening at the library.

All the living presidents were expected to attend the funeral Mass on Saturday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica — commonly known as the Mission Church — in Boston's working-class Mission Hill neighborhood. President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver the eulogy.

Shortly before the Mass, 44 sitting senators and 10 former senators will be among a group of about 100 dignitaries who will pay their respects to Kennedy at the library before making their way to the church.

Included in the group is former Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana, who pulled Kennedy from the wreckage of a small plane that crashed near Springfield, Mass., in June 1964. The pilot and a legislative aide were killed, and Kennedy suffered a broken back that caused him pain the rest of his life.

"The Impossible Dream," Kennedy's favorite song, from the musical "Man of La Mancha," will be played at one of the services, according to the person familiar with the arrangements.

The city may soon have one more Kennedy landmark. Planning is already under way for a building to house a new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate.

Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening near his assassinated brothers — former President Kennedy and former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy — at Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia.

___

Associated Press writers Ray Henry in Hyannis Port and Denise Lavoie, Jeannie Nuss and Russell Contreras in Boston contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090827/ap_on_re_us/us_kennedy_memorial

[samanthajane13]

Hundreds file past Sen. Kennedy's casket in Boston
By DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press Writer Denise Lavoie, Associated Press Writer – 7 mins ago

BOSTON – The last time Ginger Romano saw Sen. Edward Kennedy, she wasn't at her best.

As she took clothing, blankets and other supplies to a high school for people whose homes had been damaged in Boston's great blizzard of 1978, she tripped over a snow bank. A pair of hands helped her to her feet. It was Kennedy, who had been walking behind her.

"He said to me, 'What can I do to help you?'" she said. "Then he thanked me and my family."

The weather was fairer but the mood somber Friday at his public viewing, where Romano took her turn along with tens of thousands of other people to thank Kennedy, who lay in repose for a second day in a flag-draped casket at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.

Members of the Kennedy family, including his daughter Kara Kennedy Allen, nephew Tim Shriver and 81-year-old Jean Kennedy Smith, the senator's sister and the last surviving Kennedy sibling, greeted visitors.

Smith, the former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, choked back tears. "This is a hard time for me," she said when asked to talk about her brother. She was joined briefly by her son, William Kennedy Smith.

A five-person military honor guard stood at attention around the casket in a high-ceilinged room with a spectacular view of Boston Harbor.

Large photos of Kennedy with his family greeted mourners on their way into the room, including one of Kennedy as a boy with his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, and a 1960s-era shot of Kennedy with his slain brothers, John and Robert.

The library was supposed to close at 11 p.m. Thursday, but the doors were left open until 2 a.m. Friday as 21,000 people paid their respects. Visitors resumed before 8 a.m. Friday and was to continue until 3 p.m., at which point the viewing was to end to make preparations for a collection of big political names converging for a private "Celebration of Life" service Friday night.

Scheduled speakers include Vice President Joe Biden; Sens. John McCain, Orrin Hatch and Christopher Dodd; and niece Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President Kennedy. Performances will include "God Bless America" and Kennedy's favorite song, "The Impossible Dream."

Among visitors Friday morning was the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who said Kennedy helped change the country through his work for minorities, the disabled and the poor.

"As a rich person, no one reached back further for the poor or exalted them higher," Jackson said.

Visitors represented a cross-section of race and class, and many of them said they had benefited directly from Kennedy's 47 years of work in the Senate.

Fred Foster, 51, of Boston's Brighton neighborhood, said he was helped by Kennedy's work on COBRA, the federal program that allows people to retain their former company's health benefits under some circumstances.

"A few years ago I was laid off and I continued to have my health insurance because of COBRA, and that's a direct result of what Sen. Kennedy did," Foster said.

George Thomas, a member of Connecticut's Pequot tribe, arrived Friday wearing an otter turban and said he brought prayers and condolences for Kennedy's family from 40 tribes across the Northeast and Southwest.

If a tribe had a dispute over land or water rights, "a simple call to his office would resolve it," Thomas said.

As she waited in line, retired nurse Frances Murphy Araujo, 66, recalled piling into an old Chevy with six college friends and driving all night to go to John F. Kennedy's funeral in 1963.

"There's a real admiration and affection for the Kennedys in my family," she said.

"Ted Kennedy rolled up his sleeves and got the work done," she added. "He was very down to earth. You felt like you could approach him."

A funeral Mass is scheduled for Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston on Saturday. President Barack Obama is expected to deliver the eulogy.

All the living former presidents are expected to attend except for George H.W. Bush. Spokesman Jim McGrath said Friday that the 85-year-old Bush feels his son's presence will "amply and well represent" the family.

Kennedy's body was delivered to the library Thursday by a motorcade of family members and friends who had celebrated a private Mass at the family compound in Hyannis Port, 70 miles away, where Kennedy spent his final days.

Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening near his brothers at Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia.

___

Associated Press writers Ray Henry in Hyannis Port and Jeannie Nuss and Russell Contreras in Boston contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090828/ap_on_re_us/us_kennedy_memorial

[old_soul]

You must excuse the smirk on my face. While my heart goes out to his family, I will not sugarcoat a man who at best was an 'able' politician, and forget what happened to a young beautiful girl who died before her life even began.

Ted Kennedy was born in the town I was born in. He came back the year I was born and married Joan, who lived there also, in our Church. The townspeople feel a possible slice of importance at being neighbors and host to the Kennedys those many years. :cool:

More realistically I see the dark side of this family, the many lives they have ruined, and will not overlook this. Any father that has the gall to take his spirited, young daughter for a lobotomy without her Mother's knowledge, and totally, horrifyingly ruin her life (all to save face ~ his face) is a cruel self-centered man. In this day and age, she would have been diagnosed as ADHD! What he taught his son's followed his way of thinking, hence Mary Jo's death. From the beginning, a questionable family, with questionable values.

My Humble Opinion.

Rest in Peace, Dominick Dunne! :rose:

[samanthajane13]

Yo-Yo Ma, Domingo to perform at Kennedy funeral

BOSTON – Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and tenor Placido Domingo are to perform at the funeral Mass for Sen. Edward Kennedy.

The Rev. Philip Dabney, associate pastor of Boston's Mission Church, says Saturday's service will be a "regular Catholic funeral," with superb music.

In addition, a contingent from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and a soprano from New York's Metropolitan Opera will appear.

Several clergy members will be on hand. The Rev. Donald Monan, chancellor of Boston College, will be the principal celebrant.

The Rev. Mark Hession of Our Lady of Victories Parish on Cape Cod will delivery the homily, and Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley will lead the final prayers of commendation.

President Barack Obama will delivery the eulogy.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090828/ap_en_mu/us_kennedy_funeral

[samanthajane13]

Political luminaries to pay tribute to Kennedy
By BOB SALSBERG and DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press Writer Bob Salsberg And Denise Lavoie, Associated Press Writer – 58 mins ago

BOSTON – Now that the public has said goodbye to Sen. Edward Kennedy, a who's who of politics is converging on Boston for a private service featuring music, laughter and, in all likelihood, calls to grant Kennedy's last political wish — health coverage for all Americans.

The event, billed as "a celebration of life," will contrast with the solemnity of the motorcade that carried Kennedy's body from Cape Cod to Boston a day earlier and the sobriety of the public viewing, where an estimated 50,000 people filed past the senator's flag-draped coffin at the presidential library named for one of his slain brothers.

The event will honor Kennedy's love of family and friends and his commitment to public service. Scheduled speakers include Vice President Joe Biden; Sens. John McCain, Orrin Hatch, John Kerry and Christopher Dodd; and niece Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President John F. Kennedy.

Performances will include Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell singing Kennedy's favorite song, "The Impossible Dream" from the musical "Man of La Mancha," for which Mitchell was nominated for a Tony Award. Also on tap is a video tribute directed by renowned documentarian Ken Burns and Mark Herzog.

The speakers, many of whom worked for years with Kennedy in the Senate, are expected to share anecdotes of his congeniality and knack for compromise as they recall his congressional successes — and the ones he had yet to achieve when he died this week of a brain tumor at age 77.

The health care bill on which Kennedy took the lead has been among the most controversial pieces of legislation considered by Congress in recent years. Protests have erupted around the country, and opponents have called it a nationalized — even socialized — program.

Anyone addressing the health care bill at the service will tread a fine line between taste and politics, especially since conservative commentators have already objected to proposals to name the measure "The Kennedy Bill."

The dangers of politicizing a memorial event were illustrated by a 2002 memorial for Sen. Paul Wellstone, a Minnesota Democrat who was killed in a plane crash. The event became a political pep rally that turned off many voters, and some observers attributed it to Republican Norm Coleman's victory over Wellstone stand-in Walter Mondale in the special election.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said Friday that he planned to touch on Kennedy's blend of a "larger-than-life quality and his down-to-earth quality."

"He had such a lovely touch with people and did things, acts of real grace, that were out of public view, that were incredibly transformative and meaningful for the individual," the governor told reporters Friday during a visit to Martha's Vineyard.

Plans for the private memorial picked up speed Friday afternoon after officials ended the two-day public viewing at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Maureen Conte, 44, rode her bike 40 minutes to the library, and was one of the last people allowed in the viewing.

"I did it for my parents. My mom called me and was so sad. She said, 'It's the end of an era.' I came to pay homage to Ted for all he's done for our country," Conte said.

Greeting visitors were members of the Kennedy family, including his daughter Kara Kennedy Allen, nephew Tim Shriver and 81-year-old Jean Kennedy Smith, the senator's sister and the last surviving Kennedy sibling.

Smith, the former U.S. ambassador to Ireland, choked back tears. "This is a hard time for me," she said when asked to talk about her brother.

A five-person military honor guard stood at attention around the casket in a high-ceilinged room with a spectacular view of Boston Harbor. Large photos greeted mourners on their way into the room, including one of Kennedy as a boy with his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, and a 1960s-era shot of Kennedy with his slain brothers, John and Robert.

A funeral Mass is scheduled for Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica — better known as the Mission Church — in Boston on Saturday. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and tenor Placido Domingo will perform, and President Barack Obama is delivering the eulogy.

All the living former presidents are expected to attend except for George H.W. Bush. Spokesman Jim McGrath said Friday that the 85-year-old Bush feels his son's presence will "amply and well represent" the family.

Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening near his brothers at Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia.

___

Associated Press Writer Glen Johnson contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_kennedy_memorial;_ylt=ApD4qd7IU90LfFYmfBnsNe4nH L8C;_ylu=X3oDMTJtcDE3cmV1BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwODI4L 3VzX2tlbm5lZHlfbWVtb3JpYWwEY3BvcwMxBHBvcwMxBHNlYwN 5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDcG9saXRpY2FsbHVt

[samanthajane13]

Mass. mulls place in post-Kennedy era
Alex Isenstadt Alex Isenstadt – Fri Aug 28, 5:44 am ET

The hole in the Senate created by the passing of Sen. Ted Kennedy hardly compares to the void he leaves behind in Massachusetts, where even veterans of the state’s political scene are struggling with the idea of a political order without Kennedy standing atop it.

For Kennedy’s death hasn’t just deprived Massachusetts of its senior statesman. It’s scrambled the state’s election landscape and raised questions about the state’s place in Washington and its role in national politics, where Massachusetts has been a vital player for decades in no small part due to the Kennedy family’s influence in the Democratic Party.

A member of the clan has represented Massachusetts in Congress in all but two of the last 62 years—the two years between John F. Kennedy’s election as president and Ted Kennedy’s election to his former Senate seat. And since JFK’s presidency and over the course of Ted Kennedy’s career, the state has produced two Democratic House speakers, two Democratic presidential nominees and emerged as a blue state citadel.

Massachusetts insiders say it’s unthinkable that any one individual could perform the same functions as the late senator, who was a titan both at home and in Washington and made sure the state remained a forceful presence in national politics.

“If Massachusetts had a Mt. Rushmore, there would only be one face on it: Ted Kennedy,” said Dan Payne, a veteran Boston-based Democratic strategist.

Again and again, the same analogy surfaces when the subject of the post-Kennedy era is broached.

“I think Ted Kennedy’s shoes are too big for anyone to fill,” said James Roosevelt, a Massachusetts Democratic National Committeeman. “I think it will be more of a collective effort because I don’t think anyone can fill Ted Kennedy’s shoes.”

“It’s not any one person who will step forward to fill those shoes,” said Steve Grossman, a former Democratic National Committee chairman who also headed the state Democratic Party.

While Massachusetts is home to numerous influential Democratic figures, none casts a remotely similar shadow over both state and nation. And Bay State pols concede it’s not entirely clear who, if anyone, will emerge as the state’s standard-bearer.

“There is, at this moment, no political godfather to take Ted Kennedy’s place,” said Payne. “There is, for the lack of a better term, a weakening of the political gravity in Massachusetts with the loss of Ted Kennedy.”

Gov. Deval Patrick, once seen as a rising party star, has seen his poll numbers plummet and faces an arduous path to re-election in 2010. Longtime Boston Mayor Thomas Menino is facing the most difficult reelection bid of his 16-year-career.

For its part, the congressional delegation wields far more influence in Washington than it does back home.

Sen. John Kerry, the one-time Democratic presidential nominee who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, is regarded by many in the Beacon Hill establishment as a distant figure, lacking strong roots in the state’s political culture—partly a consequence of having operated for years in Kennedy’s shadow.

“For a long time he has been junior and has been junior in a big sense. He has not been seen as the go-to guy,” said one veteran Massachusetts Democratic operative, who predicted that Kerry would over time take on a bigger role. “On issues central to the state, people went to Ted Kennedy.”

Among the state’s all Democratic, 10-member House delegation, which includes several powerful House committee chairmen, there are a handful of heavyweights. Rep. Barney Frank, who heads up the Financial Services committee, has taken aggressive moves toward revamping the nation’s financial regulation system. Rep. Ed Markey, who chairs an important subcommittee, is a leader in the push for clean energy legislation.

Still, nearly all of them are viewed as either too parochial or too legislative-oriented to play a Kennedy-like role that bridges politics and policy, Boston and Washington.

“All of these people have played a big role in Washington, but they haven’t played a big role in the state,” said Payne.

It’s an opinion that’s shared outside Massachusetts as well.

“Massachusetts has been central to American politics since the Founding era. The state produced historic figures such as John Adams, Daniel Webster, Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr., Tip O'Neill, and of course, JFK. Ted Kennedy was in that class of leaders, but other current state politicians don't even come close,” said John J. Pitney Jr., a political scientist at California's Claremont McKenna College who has written extensively about Congress.

“John Kerry's influence is limited because many in his party think he blew a chance to end the Bush presidency. Its House members are able, but not history-shaping,” he said. “Perhaps another major leader will emerge, but that won't happen right away. Ted Kennedy was a sprawling oak tree, and it takes many years to grow an oak.”
Few expect that Kennedy’s successor in the Senate will aspire over time to play a similar role—or whether that’s even possible.

“Whoever takes his seat will never have the clout and influence that Ted Kennedy had,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a Massachusetts Democratic strategist who has advised Kennedy and Kerry. “Make no mistake about it: Ted Kennedy was the go-to-guy.”


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[samanthajane13]

Obama, other leaders honor Kennedy at funeral Mass
By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer Glen Johnson, Associated Press Writer – 16 mins ago

BOSTON – Leaders and other luminaries paid final tribute Saturday to Edward M. Kennedy, mourning the loss of a senator who made an indelible impact on U.S. life over 47 years in Congress and the man who held up America's most famous family during tragedy and triumph.

President Barack Obama was delivering the eulogy at a two-hour Roman Catholic funeral Mass for Kennedy. The service drew to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica three of the four living former presidents, dozens of Kennedy relatives, pews full of current and former members of Congress and hundreds of others affected by the senator in ways large and small. Kennedy died Tuesday night at 77, after battling brain cancer for more than a year.

No fewer than seven priests, 11 pallbearers and 29 honorary pallbearers took part. Tenor Placido Domingo was to sing, accompanied by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Kennedy's flag-draped casket — carried by eight servicemen — was wrapped tightly in plastic to guard against a steady rain as it was removed from his brother's presidential library and put into a hearse for the drive to the church. The senator's widow, Victoria, closed her eyes slowly and appeared to choke back tears as she watched under cover of an umbrella. The family had held a brief and private prayer service at the library in the morning.

The route to the church was lined with people, some holding "Kennedy-Thanks" signs and one person waving a lone red heart.

"We welcome the body of our friend," said a priest as the casket entered the church.

Under the soaring ceilings of the basilica, a church Kennedy had frequented almost daily while his daughter, Kara, battled cancer at a nearby hospital, over a dozen Kennedy family members accompanied the casket down the church aisle, each straining to touch a piece of the cloth covering it.

Kara Kennedy was the first family member to speak at the service, reading Psalm 72.

The unseasonable cold outdoors, the result of Tropical Storm Danny's path up the Eastern seaboard, was not felt inside the church, which grew warm from the packed crowd. The church's stained-glass windows were opened and fans turned on to quell the heat.

The cross-section of at the invitation-only service included Boston Celtics great Bill Russell, actor Jack Nicholson and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, once an aide to Kennedy.

Obama was expected to focus on Kennedy's impact on the nation since first being elected in 1962. Obama met with Mrs. Kennedy privately for about 10 minutes early in the morning, at the Fairmont Copley Plaza, a hotel frequented by the Kennedys for generations.

Kennedy's career spanned the assassinations of his brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, the civil rights era and Apollo moon landings, and battles over health, education and immigration, as well as the country's election of Obama, its first black president, who was born roughly 18 months before Kennedy took office.

The emotional funeral concluded four days of public and private mourning.

Kennedy's family has marked his passing at an elaborately organized series of services and events: a Mass at Kennedy's beloved home on Cape Cod on Thursday, a somber motorcade carrying his body from the compound in Hyannis Port, Mass., past sites in Boston sentimental to the Kennedy family, and to his brother's presidential library. There, he lay in repose for two days as thousands of people streamed by.

A rotation of friends, former staffers and others Kennedy touched took turns for a 24-hour vigil by his casket, including the parents of a murdered lifeguard, the family of an Iraq war soldier and the widow of a Sept. 11 terror victim.

Friday night, Kennedy was remembered at a bipartisan memorial service whose speakers included Sens. John McCain and John Kerry, Vice President Joe Biden and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, JFK's daughter.

"Now Teddy has become a part of history," said Schlossberg, "and we are the ones who will have to do all the things he would have done, for us, for each other and for our country."

Saturday's ceremony evoked the funerals of Kennedy's slain brothers. It was at RFK's rites in 1968 that Edward Kennedy famously memorialized Robert.

"My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

After the Boston funeral, Kennedy's body was being flown to Andrews Air Force Base, which also received JFK's body after his 1963 assassination. There was to be a prayer service at the base, and another at the U.S. Capitol for Senate staffers. The entourage then was to proceed along the National Mall and into Arlington National Cemetery.

As evening was falling, Kennedy was to be buried there on a hillside near his brothers.

___

AP writer Karen Testa contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090829/ap_on_re_us/us_kennedy_funeral

[samanthajane13]

Despite rain, Kennedy mourners flock to church
By JEANNIE NUSS, Associated Press Writer Jeannie Nuss, Associated Press Writer – 47 mins ago

BOSTON – Hundreds of mourners lined the sidewalks near Boston's Mission Church where a funeral Mass was held Saturday for Sen. Edward Kennedy, with some holding signs urging lawmakers to approve health care legislation in his honor, and other saying they just wanted to witness a moment in history.

Lillian Bennett, 59, of the city's Dorchester neighborhood said she was a longtime Kennedy supporter and was determined to get as close as she could to the invitation-only funeral, despite the driving rain.

"I said to myself this morning, 'no matter what the weather, I'm going. I don't care if I have to swim," she said, calling Kennedy "irreplaceable."

American flags, old campaign signs and photographs of Kennedy dotted the street and storefronts leading up to the church, formally named Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica. The church is located in one of Boston's most culturally diverse neighborhoods, and serves a mix of lifelong residents, students from nearby colleges and the more than 20 medical facilities in the area. Kennedy often prayed at the church while his daughter, Kara, was being treated for cancer.

The public was not allowed close to the church, where Kennedy relatives and friends and dozens of former and current members of Congress gathered for a funeral Mass. Kennedy died late Tuesday night at age 77, after battling brain cancer for more than a year.

The invited included a broad mix, from foreign dignitaries to Boston Celtics great Bill Russell, singer Tony Bennett and actor Jack Nicholson. President Barack Obama and three of the four living presidents also attended — prompting what Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis described as the largest security event he'd ever seen in Boston.

"The closet thing we could compare this to is the Democratic National Convention ... but that was 18 months of planning," he said.

Still, there were few problems, and even residents who were restricted from coming and going from their home were without complaint, Davis said. One protester was arrested during the three days of motorcades and memorials, said Davis, who did not have details.

After the Mass, Kennedy's body was wisked away in another motorcade including family and friends traveling in charter buses, to nearby Hanscom Air Force Base, to be flown for burial in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. A line of cars stretched more than a mile along the highway, as motorists pulled over to watch the motorcade. Others huddled under umbrellas and tightened hoods around their faces as they held American flags and waves from overpasses and near the entrance to the base.

Karen Spence, 45, also of Dorchester, came dressed in a bedazzled T-shirt with American flags and red flip-flops, and called her opportunity to be near the church for his funeral "the chance of a lifetime."

As Kennedy friends, family and dignitaries arrived, the crowds were respectful and largely silent, in contrast to the applause and cheers that greeted the sun-soaked motorcade Thursday, when the hearse carried Kennedy's body from his home on Cape Cod and then through the streets of Boston past sites significant to Kennedy's family and career.

On Saturday, police motorcycles led a solemn procession of the hearse and limousines carrying the immediate family from where the body had been lying in repose at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library to the church. A handful of people outside the church cheered and yelled "God Bless" and "Thank you, Teddy!" as the hearse approached.

A far-off trumpet could be heard playing a mournful melody.

Cinde Warmington, of Gilford, N.H., cradled an umbrella in the nook of her shoulder as she wrote on a fluorescent green poster, using her 19-year-old son's back as a table.

"Health care, do it for Ted," she wrote. "Keep the dream alive. Health care 4 all," the reverse side read.

"I always said I'd be there for him," Warmington said. "He spent his whole life fighting for people."

(This version CORRECTS Corrects style of Democratic Natioal Convention; ADDS crowds lining highway, overpasses as body taken to Hanscom Air Force Base; ADDS additional photo links)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090829/ap_on_re_us/us_kennedy_funeral_scene

[samanthajane13]

Kennedy remembered for 'the dream he kept alive'
By GLEN JOHNSON and DAVID ESPO, Associated Press Writers Glen Johnson And David Espo, Associated Press Writers – 1 hr 21 mins ago

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.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090829/ap_on_re_us/us_kennedy_funeral

[samanthajane13]

Obama eulogizing Kennedy at funeral Mass
By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer Glen Johnson, Associated Press Writer – Sat Aug 29, 3:57 am ET

BOSTON – Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, oft-summoned to remember departed members of his famous political family, was himself the subject of a eulogy President Barack Obama was delivering at a funeral expected to draw mourners from across the political spectrum and stations of life.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who died Tuesday at age 77 from brain cancer, was being sent off in high fashion Saturday with a Roman Catholic Mass presided over by no fewer than seven priests, 11 pallbearers and 29 honorary pallbearers.

Tenor Placido Domingo was to sing, accompanied by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Joining Obama and nearly 1,500 other invitees at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica were former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, as well as 58 current members of the U.S. Senate, 21 former members and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, once an aide to Kennedy.

White House aides were mum about the eulogy the president would offer, but Obama was expected to focus on the impact Kennedy had on American life since first being elected in 1962.

His 47-year career spanned the assassinations of his brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy; the civil rights era and Apollo moon landings; and battles over health, education and immigration; as well as the country's election of Obama, its first black president, who was born roughly 18 months before Kennedy took office.

On Friday, Kennedy was remembered at a bipartisan memorial service whose speakers included Sens. John McCain and John Kerry, Vice President Joe Biden and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, JFK's daughter.

"Now Teddy has become a part of history," Schlossberg said, "and we are the ones who will have to do all the things he would have done, for us, for each other and for our country."

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said: "I miss fighting in public and joking with him in the background."

McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, called Kennedy "the best ally you could have," while Kerry promised to deliver the health care overhaul his fellow Massachusetts Democrat so long sought.

"He labored with all his might to make health care a right for all America, and we will do that in his honor," said Kerry, D-Mass., his party's 2004 presidential nominee.

The invitation-only funeral audience of world leaders and commoners alike evoked the funerals for Kennedy's brothers. It was at RFK's rites in 1968 that the senator not only emerged as family patriarch, but also the person to deliver the final word on lives cut short.

He memorialized Robert Kennedy by saying, "My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

And in 1999, after his nephew John Jr.'s death, the senator declared: "We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair, with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But like his father, he had every gift but length of years."

Following the service, Kennedy's body was being flown to Andrews Air Force Base, which also received JFK's body after his 1963 assassination, before being driven to the U.S. Capitol then along the National Mall and into Arlington Cemetery.

There, as evening falls, he was to be buried on a hillside grave site near his two slain brothers.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090829/ap_en_mu/us_kennedy_funeral

[samanthajane13]

Kennedy carried to Arlington, laid beside brothers
By DAVID ESPO and GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writers David Espo And Glen Johnson, Associated Press Writers – 26 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was laid to rest alongside slain brothers John and Robert on hallowed ground at Arlington National Cemetery on Saturday evening, celebrated for "the dream he kept alive" across the decades since their deaths.

Crowds lined the streets of two cities on a day that marked the end of a political era — outside Kennedy's funeral in rainy Boston, and later in the day in humid, late-summer Washington. With flags over the Capitol flying at half-staff in his memory, his hearse stopped outside the Senate where he served for 47 years.

"Go now, to your place of rest. And meet the Lord, your God," said the Rev. Daniel Coughlin, the House chaplain.

A few miles away, Kennedy's freshly excavated gravesite was on a gently sloping Virginia hillside, flanked by a pair of maple trees. His brother Robert, killed in 1968 while running for president, lies 100 feet away. It is another 100 to the eternal flame that has burned since 1963 for John F. Kennedy, president when he was assassinated.

The youngest brother died Tuesday at 77, more than a year after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. An oak cross, painted white, marked the head of his grave, and a flat marble footstone bore the simple inscription, "Edward Moore Kennedy 1932-2009."

In Boston, one son, Patrick, wept quietly as another, Teddy Jr., spoke from the pulpit of the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Teddy Jr. recalled 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.'"

"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 Catholic church, and again when it was brought back out for the flight to Washington and the military cemetery just across the Potomac River from Washington.

In life, the senator had visited the burial ground often to mourn his brothers, 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.

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.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090829/ap_on_re_us/us_kennedy_funeral

[samanthajane13]

Kennedy remembered for his years in the Senate



WASHINGTON – Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, laid to rest alongside his slain brothers John and Robert, was remembered as a "veritable force of nature" who worked tirelessly in the Senate for nearly five decades on the causes he cared about deeply.

Crowds lined the streets of two cities on a day that marked the end of an American political era — outside Kennedy's funeral in rainy Boston where he was eulogized by President Barack Obama, and later in humid, late-summer Washington.

Kennedy, who died Tuesday at age 77, more than a year after he was diagnosed with brain cancer, was buried Saturday on hallowed ground at Arlington National Cemetery. At a graveside enveloped in deepening darkness, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington, offered sympathies to Kennedy relatives and "an extended family that must probably include most of America."

Earlier, Obama delivered the eulogy in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, packed with row upon row of mourners — including former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

"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 remarks 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, he was the "baby of the family who became its patriarch, the restless dreamer who became its rock."

One of Kennedy's sons, Patrick, wept quietly as another, Teddy Jr., spoke from the pulpit. Teddy Jr. recalled 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.'"

"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.'"

Kennedy's freshly excavated gravesite was on a gently sloping Virginia hillside, flanked by a pair of maple trees. His brother Robert, killed in 1968 while running for president, lies 100 feet away. It is another 100 feet to the eternal flame that has burned since 1963 for John F. Kennedy, president when he was assassinated.

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.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090830/ap_on_re_us/us_kennedy_remembered

[samanthajane13]

Kennedy's dogs will be missed on Hill
Erika Lovley Erika Lovley – Sun Aug 30, 8:22 am ET

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) was years ahead of the curve when it came to Take Your Dog to Work Day. The constant presence of his three Portuguese water dogs in his Russell building office helped humanize their owner and brought a sense of fun to a workplace known for rules and formalities.

Now, lobbyists, staffers and other Hill dwellers say they mourn not only the passing of Kennedy but also he end of a unique chapter in Capitol Hill’s canine history. With their black curly hair, floppy ears and bouncy gait, Kennedy’s dogs became a part of the lawmaker’s nearly 47-year Hill tenure.

Kennedy’s Senate office always had water bowls and tennis balls on hand. Major legislation was hammered out as White House officials patted fuzzy heads and threw balls during meetings. The dogs were known to snooze under committee room tables.

“It’s like the end of an era,” said Kennedy’s former judiciary committee general council David Sutphen. “I find it hard to believe you’ll have another senator with a dog who comes to meetings all over the Capitol. It’s kind of the closing of a chapter.”

With the exception of the Senate floor, there were few places Splash, Sunny and Cappy didn’t have access to, including committee hearings and, once, even the Oval Office. It was a rare day when the Massachusetts lawmaker wasn’t shadowed by at least one of the pooches, whether Kennedy’s schedule brought him an office full of visitors or a committee bill markup.

A powerful man with a booming voice and a formidable family legacy, Kennedy often used his dogs to break the ice with Republican lawmakers, to relax nervous visitors and to put political personalities to the sniff test.

“They were part of the landscape,” said former Bush senior education adviser Sandy Kress, who partnered with Kennedy’s office to develop the mammoth education bill No Child Left Behind.

“I had no problem patting the dog while talking about Section 10.32. ... It just created a pleasant environment,” said Kress, who often watched the senator toss tennis balls to the dogs in the office. “At one point, we got it into our heads that the dogs reacted poorly to committee members who weren’t No Child supporters. We always joked that the dogs knew best.”

Studies have shown that pets in the workplace can boost productivity and raise employee morale and Kennedy was walking proof, animal experts say.

“Our pets humanize us. Immediately, there’s something to talk about,” said ASPCA executive vice president Stephen Zawistowski. “A dog provides easy common contact. It’s a neutral contact.”

Kennedy is far from the only lawmaker known for bringing furry friends to the Hill — a hobby he used to make friends on both sides of the aisle.

The Senator bonded with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer over their canine affinity, according to the Congressman. Hoyer’s English Springer Spaniel had her own bed in Hoyer’s office before she passed away in 2007.

“God invented dogs for us, to give us the kind of uncompromising love that human beings need, and we in turn give them the same kind of love,” Hoyer noted at the Congressional Canine Champions awards ceremony earlier this year.

President George W. Bush’s National Institutes of Health appointee Elias Zerhouni reportedly earned Kennedy’s support after one of the dogs stayed by Zerhouni’s side during a meeting about the Senate confirmation process.

But Kennedy's dogs weren’t saints either. Like a parent of spoiled children, the senator was loving but a poor disciplinarian.

Splash has been known to bark impatiently during long meetings. The dog once sent White House staffers into a frenzy when the pooch began barking in the Oval Office. Kennedy and his pets were at the White House waiting for the start of a religious freedom bill signing ceremony with President Clinton.

“Kennedy was working the room, and Splash starts barking incessantly. The president was off in a side room having a meeting and the White House staffers start freaking out,” said Sutphen, a former staffer who attended the ceremony with Kennedy.

After Splash was excused, Clinton walked in, asking why he’d heard barking.

“No one fessed up,” said Sutphen. “But it showed the light-hearted, jovial, jokester side of [Kennedy].”
The dogs’ antics could turn Capitol Hill into a dysfunctional family scene.

While interning on Capitol Hill, then-Maryland University student Scott Shewfelt met Kennedy as he stumbled upon the Porties, unleashed and fresh from a haircut, digging in the shrubs outside the Russell Senate federal building where Kennedy kept his office.

“Teddy was yelling at them, but they weren’t listening at all,” Shewfelt said. “It was absolute chaos.”
Whether the dogs were a distraction or not, Capitol Hill regulars say rarely was a complaint heard.

Boston Globe political reporter Susan Milligan, who covered Kennedy for almost a decade, was once dragged away from an interview with another Senator as Kennedy insisted she come visit the dogs.

“I was interviewing Sen. [Olympia] Snowe when Kennedy came around the corner and asked if I would come ‘say hi to the dogs,'” Mulligan recalled. “At that point, what was I going to say? He had me come in the car and greet the dogs. He really wanted me to say hello.”

Today, the Kennedy offices are quiet and the dogs are residing with the late senator’s wife, Vicki, at the family compound on Cape Cod.

Wayne Pacelle, chief executive officer of the Humane Society of the United States, hopes the tradition of dog in Hill offices continues.

“He showed that animals are intimately involved in our lives, and there is an implicit reminder of our responsibility to them,” said Pacelle. “So many more people are treating their dogs like members of the family. You may see other members handle their dogs in a similar way.”


http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090830/pl_politico/26539

[samanthajane13]

Fortune helped fuel Kennedy family legacy, agenda
By STEVE LeBLANC, Associated Press Writer Steve Leblanc, Associated Press Writer – 52 mins ago

BOSTON – Sen. Edward Kennedy's family fortune not only fueled his brothers' presidential campaigns and his eight terms in the U.S. Senate, it also helped drive the family's liberal legacy and forge Kennedy's lifelong crusade for universal health care.

Just how wealthy was Kennedy when he died Tuesday at the age of 77 after a yearlong battle with brain cancer?

Untangling a family fortune that reaches back to the early days of the past century is murky business, but the annual federal financial disclosure reports Kennedy was required to file provide at least a' partial glimpse into his personal capital.

As a U.S. senator, Kennedy earned a base salary of $165,200 a year, but that just skimmed the surface of his net worth.

On the most recent report in 2008, which includes his own assets and those of his wife and any dependents, Kennedy listed a string of publicly and non-publicly traded trusts and assets. Under the filing rules, Kennedy was only required to place the value of those assets within a range, rather than give an exact dollar amount.

The report placed the net worth of his publicly traded assets somewhere between a low of $15 million and high of $72.6 million.

Just a year earlier, Kennedy reported somewhat rosier totals that placed his publicly traded assets somewhere between a low of $46.9 million and a high of $157 million.

Kennedy has other sources of income, including $1,995,833 in royalties he received from Grand Central Publishing a division of Hachette Group Book, publishers of his memoir True Compass scheduled for release in mid-September. Part of the proceeds will go to charity, including the John F. Kennedy Library.

Separate from his personal wealth was Kennedy's federal campaign account. As of the end of June, Kennedy reported more than $4.5 million in the account.

The main source of Kennedy's wealth was his father and family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy who amassed a fortune in banking, real estate, liquor, films and Wall Street holdings that eventually grew to an estimated $500 million by the 1980s.

A significant portion of that came from Joseph P. Kennedy's decision to buy Chicago's famed Merchandise Mart in 1945 for $12.5 million. Spanning two city blocks and rising 25 stories, the sprawling limestone and terra-cotta mart is so large it has its own zip code and only lost its title as the world's largest building after the Pentagon was built in the 1940s.

The elder Kennedy helped transformed it into a national center for the home furnishings and design industries.

The family retained ownership of the building until 1998 when it was sold — along with other properties including Chicago's Apparel Center which covers about a million square feet — to Vornado Realty Trust of Saddle Brook, N.J. for $625 million in 1998 to take advantage of the then-booming real estate market.

The deal allowed Kennedy heirs to receive a stake in one of the nation's largest real estate investment trusts.

"One of my cousins reminded me of a quote from my grandfather: 'Only a fool waits for top dollar,'" Christopher Kennedy, the son of the late Sen. Robert Kennedy told The Wall Street Journal at the time.

The late John F. Kennedy Jr. also joked about his family's real estate holdings when he visited Chicago in 1996 to mark the launch of George magazine.

"In the 1940s, my family bought the Merchandise Mart. In the 1970s, we bought the Apparel Center. And in the 1960 election, my family bought 20,000 votes," he said, referring to his father's narrow presidential victory.

For Sen. Kennedy, the family fortune only reinforced his determination to expand access to health care.

It was a lesson he learned through his own painful experience.

In a Newsweek column he wrote a month before his death, Kennedy recalled the grueling treatment his son Teddy Jr. had to undergo in 1973 for bone cancer that eventually required the amputation of his right leg.

The experimental clinical trial, which included massive doses of chemotherapy, was free at first, but was deemed a success before some patients had completed their treatments. That forced some families to rely on insurance or pay out of pocket to cover the rest.

While Kennedy had the needed resources, not everyone was so lucky.

"Heartbroken parents pleaded with the doctors: What chance does my child have if I can only afford half of the prescribed treatments? Or two thirds? I've sold everything. I've mortgaged as much as possible," Kennedy wrote. "No parent should suffer that torment. Not in this country."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090830/ap_on_re_us/us_kennedy_fortune

[samanthajane13]

Ted Kennedy to Pope Benedict: 'I am writing with deep humility...'
Posted: 08/29/09

As if Ted Kennedy didn't have enough Catholic mojo going his way after today's funeral mass in Boston, the burial at Arlington this evening held another surprise: The contents of a moving exchange of letters between Kennedy and Pope Benedict XVI -- correspondence that touched on Kennedy's deep faith as well as public policy battles including abortion and universal health care.

It was known that Kennedy had written a personal letter to the pontiff, and had President Obama carry it to the pope when Obama visited the Vatican in July. But the contents of the letter were unknown, and it was reported that Benedict XVI had responded but the substance was also unknown.

At the interment at Arlington, retired Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick used the brief rite as an opportunity to read much of the contents of the two letters, which revealed something about both senator and pope.

Kennedy's letter was in both a plea and a brief for himself -- as well as a vouching for Obama. He began:

"Most Holy Father, I asked President Obama to personally hand deliver this letter to you. As a man of deep faith himself, he understands how important my Roman Catholic faith is to me, and I am deeply grateful to him.

"I hope this letter finds you in good health. I pray that you have all of God's blessings as you lead our Church and inspire our world during these challenging times.

"I am writing with deep humility to ask that you pray for me as my own health declines. I was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, and, although I continue treatment, the disease is taking its toll on me. I am 77 years old and preparing for the next passage of life.

"I have been blessed to be a part of a wonderful family, and both of my parents, particularly my mother, kept our Catholic faith at the center of our lives. That gift of faith has sustained, nurtured and provided solace to me in the darkest hours. I know that I have been an imperfect human being, but with the help of my faith, I have tried to right my path."

Then Kennedy goes on to defend his public record -- a last apologia from a controversial Catholic figure. And while he avoids altogether the pro-choice record that was the source of his greatest tension with the hierarchy, he does vow that (as Obama has) that any health care reform package would include conscience protections for health care workers who refuse to participate in procedures that would violate their beliefs, such as abortion:

"I want you to know, Your Holiness, that in my nearly 50 years of elective office, I have done my best to champion the rights of the poor and open doors of economic opportunity. I've worked to welcome the immigrant, fight discrimination and expand access to health care and education. I have opposed the death penalty and fought to end war. Those are the issues that have motivated me and been the focus of my work as a United States Senator.

"I also want you to know that even though I am ill, I am committed to do everything I can to achieve access to health care for everyone in my country. This has been the political cause of my life. I believe in a conscience protection for Catholics in the health care field and will continue to advocate for it as my colleagues in the Senate and I work to develop an overall national health policy that guarantees health care for everyone.

"I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic, Your Holiness, and though I have fallen short through human failings, I have never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings. I continue to pray for God's blessings on you and our Church and would be most thankful for your prayers for me."
Two weeks later, the pope responded, writing, as usual, through a senior Vatcan official:

"The Holy Father has read the letter which you entrusted to President Barack Obama, who kindly presented it to him during their recent meeting. He was saddened to know of your illness, and has asked me to assure you of his concern and his spiritual closeness. He is particularly grateful for your promise of prayers for him and for the needs of the universal Church.

"His Holiness prays that in the days ahead you may be sustained in faith and hope, and granted the precious grace of joyful surrender to the will of God our merciful Father. He invokes upon you the consolation and peace promised by the Risen Savior to all who share in His sufferings and trust in His promise of eternal life.

"Commending you and the members of your family to the loving intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Father cordially imparts his Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of wisdom, comfort and strength in the Lord."
Benedict wisely, and predictably, rendered no judgment on Kennedy's public record. But his charitable and heartfelt expressions of support and prayer are sure to to be a solace in liberal quarters. In remarks prepared for the interment service, Cardinal McCarrick was at his usual pastoral self, offering condolences to Kennedy's widow, Vicki, and all the family -- and adding a story of his own that seemed to put in perspective the entire saga of Kennedy's often tricky relationship to the church:

"They called him the Lion of the Senate and indeed that is what he was," McCarrick said. "His roar and his zeal for what he believed made a difference in our nation's life."

"Sometimes, we who were his friends and had affection for him would get mad at him when he roared at what we believed was the wrong side of an issue which was important to us, but we always were touched by his passion for the underdog, for the rights of working people, for better education and for adequate health care for every American," the cardinal added. "His legacy will surely place him among the dozen or so greats in the history of the Senate of the United States."


http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/08/29/ted-kennedy-to-pope-benedict-i-am-writing-with-deep-humility/?icid=main|htmlws-main|dl1|link4|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politicsdaily.com% 2F2009%2F08%2F29%2Fted-kennedy-to-pope-benedict-i-am-writing-with-deep-humility%2F

[samanthajane13]

Kennedy memoir reveals remorse over Chappaquiddick
NEW YORK – In a posthumous memoir, Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy writes of fear and remorse surrounding the fateful events on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969, when his car accident left a woman dead.

"True Compass" is to be published Sept. 14 by Twelve, a division of the Hachette book group. The 532-page book was obtained early by The New York Times.

In it, Kennedy says his actions on July 18, 1969, were "inexcusable." He says he was afraid and "made terrible decisions" and had to live with the guilt for more than four decades.

Kennedy drove off a bridge into a pond. He swam to safety while Mary Jo Kopechne (koh-PEK'-nee) drowned. He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and got a suspended sentence and probation.

Kennedy died last week of a brain tumor at age 77.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

NEW YORK (AP) — In a posthumous memoir, Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy writes of fear and remorse surrounding the fateful events on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969, when his car accident left a woman dead.

"True Compass" is to be published Sept. 14 by Twelve, a division of the Hachette book group. The 532-page book was obtained early by The New York Times.

In it, Kennedy says his actions on July 18, 1969, were "inexcusable." He says he was afraid and "made terrible decisions" and had to live with the guilt for more than four decades.

Kennedy drove off a bridge into a pond. He swam to safety while Mary Jo Kopechne (koh-PEK'-nee) drowned. He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and got a suspended sentence and probation.

Kennedy died last week of a brain tumor at age 77.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090903/ap_on_en_ot/us_kennedy_memoir

[samanthajane13]

Vicki Kennedy describes husband's cancer battle
By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer Don Babwin, Associated Press Writer – Wed Nov 25, 1:56 pm ET

CHICAGO – The widow of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy told Oprah Winfrey in an interview broadcast Wednesday that even as her husband knew he was dying of brain cancer he had been "in training" to make sure he had enough strength to attend President Barack Obama's inauguration.

In the most extensive interview since her husband's death in August, Vicki Kennedy said she wouldn't try to run for her husband's former U.S. Senate seat and described how he battled brain cancer — but she would not talk about the last thing he said to her before dying.

"I think I'll just keep that one to myself," she told Winfrey on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

During the hour-long interview was taped Friday, Kennedy was sometimes joined on stage by her two grown children as well as Ted Kennedy Jr. She described her husband's seizure in May 2008, which led to his diagnosis of the brain cancer that ended his life at the age of 77.

"We went from thinking he had lost his life, to thinking that he'd had a stroke, to thinking that he wouldn't speak to thinking that he was OK, to then finding out that he might have a brain tumor all in the span of about three hours," she said.

She also told Winfrey about how her husband kept working on his book after his diagnosis and even was calling colleagues in the Senate to talk about strategy to push through legislation as he was traveling to Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. to undergo brain surgery.

"It was an inspiration, really, to watch how Teddy grappled with such a grave diagnosis and always looked forward with hope," she said.

After watching a clip of her husband's speech at the Democratic National Convention, Kennedy said her husband, despite being told initially that he had just a few months to live, was determined to survive long enough to see Obama sworn in as president.

"He was in training to be there in January," she said. "He was exercising every single day to be strong enough to be there," and even calculated how many steps he would have to take that day.

During the interview, Winfrey held Ted Kennedy's memoir "True Compass," which was released shortly after Kennedy's death, and read from it a number of times. As of Tuesday, the book was 12th on the New York Times Best Sellers list for nonfiction titles.

Kennedy also adamantly told Winfrey that she had no intention of ever running for the Senate seat that her husband held for nearly a half century when the host mentioned about "talk" that she might run.

"No, no, not for me," she said. "We had Sen. Kennedy in our household."

The program also included clips from Kennedy's life. There was news coverage of assassinations of Ted Kennedy's older brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, along with Kennedy's own run failed run for president and the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, who drowned after Kennedy drove the car in which she was riding into a pond on Chappaquiddick island.

There were also scenes from Kennedy's funeral service — including perhaps the most poignant moment during which in his eulogy of his father, Ted Kennedy Jr. told of having his leg amputated when he was 12 and how his father picked him up after he fell on a hill and told him that together they would "climb that hill together, if it takes us all day."

"He just gave me so much encouragement at a very difficult time in my life," Kennedy Jr. told Winfrey. "He was just such an optimistic person."

The younger Kennedy became emotional when he talked about a letter that his father wrote to Pope Benedict XVI after he was diagnosis of terminal brain cancer, a letter in which Kennedy acknowledged some of his failures and, as Winfrey read, how he had "tried to right my path."

"I though that was the most beautiful letter I've ever heard," he said.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091125/ap_en_tv/us_winfrey_vicki_kennedy