Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy, (1932-2009)

He meant a lot to a lot of Americans. This is the tribute video put together last year for the Democratic National Convention:



Some have viewed Ted Kennedy through the eyes of "Camelot"--as the nation's active, surviving link to the lost promise of his older brothers, whose lives were so tragically cut short, and romanticized somewhat. Others have chosen to dwell on the man as the sum of his faults and personal failings, magnified, vilified, and cariactured into a liberal ogre of ego and privilege. To me--Ted Kennedy was a person who could and sometimes did fall short as any of us do, and on one terrible occasion, made a series of horrible choices that may have cost a young woman her life, but in the many, many years that he worked, tirelessly and vocally in the Senate, on behalf of the American people, he tried to live up to the legacy of his fallen family, and make good out of his life.

And he did it. If pure partisans hated his guts, perhaps they forgot he was a man who remembered when bipartisanship meant something, and he got things done that needed doing--that personally, he didn't hate the opposition, but worked from a sense of the common goal between Republicans and Democrats of preserving and enhancing the general welfare of all Americans.

Tragedy made him an accidental patriarch, and history made him a lightning rod. But grace and good spirits and perseverance made him an effective legislator and an effective mentor for those, like our current president, who listened and learned.

And if it isn't too romantic, he was a "Liberal Lion,"and a champion of civil rights and the rights of working people. He genuinely cared, and it showed in the many, many pieces of legislation that bore his name as a sponsor.

He will not be forgotten, and he will be missed, but his greatest legacy is in showing us how to move on, even when in grief, and even when in doubt--you just do go on and you succeed because you must. He knew only too well that public life might have a cost. But he served because he also understood the cost of not doing so, in wasted opportunities.

He was not perfect--but he was great.