Ted Kennedy Dies of Brain Cancer at Age 77

[FORD]

From Mike Malloy's website.....

Mike's Daily Blog
Senator Ted Kennedy

August 26th, 2009

He was, of course, the only Kennedy brother we got to watch grow old.

Joe died young fighting in WWII; Jack and Bobby were assassinated in each of their life’s prime by the right-wing, neo-Fascist madness that continues to poison this country; Ted died last night at the age of 77 after a lengthy fight against brain cancer.

I heard the news of his death early this morning as I was driving my 5-year-old daughter Molly to her kindergarten class. She was belted into the seat behind me looking at the illustrations in, “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” or, as she insists, “reading” her current favorite book.

The sun was pouring bright morning light over the country roads that take us into the nearby town where Molly goes to class when I tuned in to CNN on Sirius radio. Wolf Blitzer was talking with correspondent Dana Bash about Senator Kennedy’s passing at 11:30 last night. My first reaction was a profound sadness – and a rush of hot tears that momentarily refracted the sunlight into blurry flashes of gold and yellow against the still shadowed macadam road.

And that surprised me. Why this reaction? Why the tears? I don’t know. I was not hearing of the death of a friend or a family member. While Ted Kennedy’s journey certainly was embedded in my consciousness, a person who traveled with me as a part of my own life’s experiences, he was always removed, like the central character in a novel that one reads and then reads again. Perhaps the announcement was simply another reminder of the scope of the tragedy that has been the Kennedy Family - a monumental Shakespearean tragedy, far beyond what any family should be fated to endure.

Or maybe it was yet another notice – and they seem to be arriving daily – of my own mortality, my own profound insignificance; the accelerating passage of time that demands attention, finally, in every person’s life. The insistent awareness that the river flows more rapidly the further it travels toward its ultimate destination.

Maybe it was neither of these. Maybe it was simply the juxtaposition of CNN’s reporting of his death and the presence of my daughter reading her book in the seat behind me as we drove through the early morning sunshine to her second day of kindergarten.

- MDM

[FORD]

Teddy
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Wednesday 26 August 2009

For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. 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.

- Sen. Edward M. Kennedy

The nation awoke on Wednesday morning to the news that Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts had passed away in the night, in his bed, with his family by his side. The television news networks overflowed with metaphors for the moment - the Liberal Lion, the Last Brother, the End of an Era, the Last Chapter - but it was a man who was dead. Just a man, one we had come to know intimately during his half-century of service, triumph, heartbreak, disgrace and diligence.

Just a man whose brother Joe volunteered to fly an experimental weapons platform in 1944 and was killed when the plane abruptly exploded; just a man whose brother John was cut down by an assassin's bullet in Dallas; just a man whose brother Robert died on a dirty kitchen floor in California, victim of another assassin. Just a man who narrowly escaped death when his own plane crashed, breaking his back and maiming him forever. Just a man whose family was visited with more tragedy than any one man should have to bear.

And, yes, just a man who made tremendous mistakes, who drank too much, who partied too hard, whose irresponsibility took the life of a young woman named Mary Jo Kopechne and spawned a generation of insults, judgments and bumper stickers that read, "My gun has killed less people than Ted Kennedy's car." The Chappaquiddick incident, as it came to be known, nearly annihilated Kennedy's political career, and was surely the central reason why his attempts to win the presidency all ended in failure.

Would we as a nation have been better off if Kennedy's political career had been derailed by his own shortcomings and tremendous mistakes? There are some who will surely say this is so, and they have every right to that opinion. Without Ted Kennedy in the Senate, however, the nation may well have never seen the passage of bills like the Immigration and Nationality Act, the National Cancer Act, the COBRA Act, the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Ryan White AIDS Care Act, the Civil Rights Act (1991), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the Mental Health Parity Act, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, all of which and more he championed during his long service in the Senate. Kennedy sponsored more than 2,000 pieces of legislation in his time, and it can honestly and truly be said that his efforts have served more people than any five presidents who came and went under his watchful Irish eyes.

"The fact that his tangible accomplishments transcended his mythic role in the Kennedy drama," wrote The Boston Globe on Wednesday, "attests to the vast extent of his legislative impact. In each of four areas, he dominated legislative politics for more than four decades, spanning ten presidencies, and played a large role in transforming the government's relationship to the people. Bill by bill, provision by provision, he expanded government health support to millions of children and the elderly, helped millions more go to college, opened the immigration doors to millions of new Americans from continents other than Europe, and protected the civil rights bulwark of the '60s through a long period of conservative domination. And by the time his life ended yesterday, surrounded by loved ones in a gentle scene that contrasted sharply with the violent deaths of his brothers, Ted Kennedy had built a nuts-and-bolts legacy to stand beside that of his presidential brother as a figure of hope and his senatorial brother as a figure of compassion."

Teddy was just a man, but ended his life as something far more than that. Teddy, now gone from us, has become an idea, a bulwark, a standard and a clarion call to service and national duty. He will no longer be in the Senate working for us, and it is impossible to believe someone will step forward to stand in his place. He was just a man, and he has finally paid that death we all owe in the end, so the rest is up to us all. The dream he spoke of can indeed end, and surely will, if we let it. He guarded it, tended it and enriched it for so long, but that is over. It is up to us now, just as he would want it to be.

Link: t r u t h o u t | Teddy

[kwame k]

The common denominator here is bi-partisanship.......Ted had it, period.

All this talk about had he been well, we'd have a Health Care bill are a little overboard and said out of respect for the deceased only. This has been his so-called life's work/mission and it's failed every time to get a passable bill. He would of been huge for any shot of getting bi-partisan support and would have been a key player in passage of the bill but I don't think any one person could bring about a passable bill. Too much greed and money to be made by leaving the status quo. Most people in congress are beholden to one type or another Medical Special Interest Group. They all say they are in favor of reform but at the end of the day all we'll have is a bunch of words and hollow promises.

[FORD]

Bipartisanshit (not a typo) isn't going to work with the current batch of Repukes. Teddy was old school, and he kept trying to work with the filthy fucks, but it wouldn't get him anywhere with this crowd. Must preserve corporate profits at all costs.

[kwame k]

Agreed, FORD.

[FORD]

Dear Friends,
Senator Kennedy and Dennis Kucinich


Senator Kennedy visits then Cleveland City Councilman
Dennis Kucinich at St. Alexis Hospital, May 4th, 1971

"I first met Senator Kennedy on May 4, 1971, when he visited me at St. Alexis Hospital in Cleveland. I was then a Cleveland City Councilman recovering from an injury and, somehow, he discovered I was in the hospital and paid a surprise visit to my room. He was visiting hospitals as part of his national effort to raise awareness of the need for reform of our health care system. I was elated to meet him. The visit began a friendship which has spanned four decades, during which time I had the privilege of serving with Senator Kennedy in the United States Congress.

His compassion and caring was always personal and always real. When my brother Perry died unexpectedly in December of 2007, Ted Kennedy was one of the first to call with condolences, sharing his sympathetic understanding of what it means to lose a sibling.

He had a powerful sensitivity to human emotion and his life writ large the range of human experience: great triumphs and sudden reversals. His tenacity often came against the heavy burden of deep personal tragedy, which enlarged the quality of his spirit, and made his frequent expressions of humor poignant and profound. Yes, he made himself into one of the greatest Senators, with his advocacy for human rights for health care, education and worker protections.

But Ted Kennedy was more than a great Senator. He was a great friend."

Sincerely.
Dennis

[jhale667]

Bipartisanshit (not a typo) isn't going to work with the current batch of Repukes. Teddy was old school, and he kept trying to work with the filthy fucks, but it wouldn't get him anywhere with this crowd. Must preserve corporate profits at all costs.

Nailed it.

Agreed, FORD.

Clever-trousers!

[Va Beach VH Fan]

I need to semi-correct myself...

He technically was a Korean War "veteran", but he was never in the Korean theater of operations... He was a private first class and served in the military police at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, then located in Paris and now in Belgium.

It's like my Dad is a World War II veteran, but he didn't join the Navy until 1946 and was only stationed in Jacksonville... It was that way until July 1947....

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Bipartisanshit (not a typo) isn't going to work with the current batch of Repukes. Teddy was old school, and he kept trying to work with the filthy fucks, but it wouldn't get him anywhere with this crowd. Must preserve corporate profits at all costs.

I laughed out loud today listening to Wolf Blitzer talking about how Kennedy's death will make everyone "buckle down" and get healthcare reform complete...

That, my friends, is bovine feces...

These dudes are a different breed, and I don't mean that in a good way...

[FORD]

Obama said he "promised Teddy". Let's hope he remembers that.

[Seshmeister]

Hmm... he promised a lot of things.

Best case scenario is a fail already.

[ELVIS]

Yep...

[Nitro Express]

I think Ted Kennedy was a troubled individual. He grew up under a crooked father. He was the spoiled rich kid. He his older brothers tragicly and was expected to be the next JFK. Add in alcoholism and you have a mess. In his older years he knew he was going to be just a senator and set out to be the best senator he could be. He also was the last remaining patriarch of the Kennedy family. I think Ted Kennedy was a complicated stew of the worst and the best.

[Nitro Express]

My dad had some dealings with the Kennedys when he worked for the Sun Valley Company. They used to vacation there and got banned due to non payment of bills. He said the Kennedys were a wierd combination of the best and the worst. This of course depended on what one you were dealing with and the circumstances. He told me Eunice Kennedy was always the nicest of the bunch.

[Big Train]

Is there an appropriate time in all of this whitewashing to mention negligent homicide?