FROM POLITICIAN TO LEGEND

By Edwin Cooney

The passing of Edward Moore Kennedy after nearly 47 years of public service in the U.S. Senate brings forth much in the way of both nostalgia and reflection.

First and perhaps foremost, there are the days of Camelot even if “Camelot” turned out to be merely a widow’s heart-wrenching dream. The Kennedy administration was a mixture of a young president’s creativity (the Peace Corps), eloquence (his inaugural address), miscalculation (the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion), brilliant calculation (the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis), idealism (the Medicare fight of 1962), and determination (the 1962 struggle with the steel barons). Then, suddenly, in the space of four days of violence, tears and dignity, John F. Kennedy passed from a vital living being into the martyrdom of death.

Next there came the turbulence of the late Sixties starkly emblazoned in our awareness by the unforgettable issue-oriented and celebrity-bedecked presidential candidacy of Robert Kennedy. RFK’s candidacy would champion nonviolence as well as mutual love and respect before being silenced forever by yet another assassin’s bullet.

Then came the last of the three brothers who graced 1960s politics: Massachusetts Senator Edward (Teddy) Kennedy. Even as Teddy tearfully asserted that his brother should not be idealized in death beyond what he was in life, the genuine grief of millions across the country was salved by the thought that the man there, in St. Patrick’s Cathedral eulogizing his brother, might turn out to be the greatest Kennedy of them all.

Alas, such wasn’t to be. For one solid year it seemed that the elegant and eloquent thirty-six-year-old Massachusetts senator was clearly destined to sit in the White House. Only another tragedy (people feared young Ted’s assassination) could prevent that likelihood. Then suddenly there came an unexpected and bedeviling tragedy.

The weekend of July 18-20, 1969 was to be as much a Kennedy family triumph as a national one. President John Kennedy’s May 1961 goal that America put a man on the moon before the decade of the sixties was out was about to be realized. However, even before the Apollo 11 Spacecraft could enter lunar orbit after launching on Wednesday, July 16th, two families plus one political career suffered an immeasurable tragedy. For many Americans, the real character of Edward Moore Kennedy was revealed when he failed to immediately report the car accident in which he was involved that took the life of Mary Jo Kopechne, a former RFK campaign worker. Teddy was driving her “home or elsewhere” after an alcohol-ridden barbecue that Friday night.

The questions came thick and fast and over time it became clear that satisfaction with the answers increasingly depended just as much on one’s political orientation as it did on one’s sensibilities. As the reckless drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne undoubtedly revealed a character flaw or two or three in Edward M. Kennedy’s personhood, it equally demonstrated a willingness on the part of his political opponents to use his misfortune to stamp not merely the Senator himself, but even his political faith. Thus, the Kennedys passed from the gentle warmth of public nostalgia into the contentious domain of political analysis and judgment.

Still, throughout much of the 1970’s, Teddy Kennedy’s name was at the top of most people’s list of likely future presidents. In 1972 and 1976, Ted Kennedy gave passionate political orations in support of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter, the presidential candidates of those conventions.

Next came Senator Kennedy’s last plunge into presidential politics as he challenged his own party’s incumbent, President Carter, for re-nomination. However, by 1980, both his waistline and his voice had thickened; his enunciation was often blurred dulling the eloquence of his message. So it was Jimmy Carter rather than Edward Kennedy who faced (or, if you insist, lost to) Ronald Reagan thus bringing on a conservative era in politics.

Thereafter, Ted Kennedy proceeded to be the best senator possible. If it meant working across the aisle on behalf of the gentler parts of the conservative agenda, Ted Kennedy would do so. In so doing, he would befriend Senators Bob Dole of Kansas, Dan Quayle of Indiana, Orrin Hatch of Utah, John McCain of Arizona, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and, undoubtedly, a significant number of other GOP senators. He would champion issues such as civil rights, the rights of labor, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and, notably, the No Child Left Behind Act above and beyond its originator President George W. Bush.

First and foremost in Ted Kennedy’s heart was of course “Health Care.” Although he didn’t live to see its passage, it may well be that his name will be the ultimate force that makes a national health care bill a reality. If, as conservatives insist, Ted Kennedy possessed too little character to deserve election to the presidency, he possessed enough character to inspire hope in the lives of a lot of people who don’t have enough money to meet some important and, as I see them, fundamentally personal needs.

If we assign any value or legitimacy to Christ’s command that we feed his sheep as we would feed “Him,” then surely Senator Edward Moore Kennedy’s dedication to that commandment might do him more good than those presidential electoral votes he never received.

Now that he’s gone, the name Edward Moore Kennedy surely joins the names Robert Francis Kennedy and John Fitzgerald Kennedy among America’s grandest political legends.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY