Reflections on the Kennedy Legacy.

I guess I wasn't surprised this morning when the television announced that Senator Ted Kennedy had died during the night from brain cancer. It came a little sooner than I expected, but it was inevitable. Brain cancer is a devastating disease; I think he confronted it bravely.

The Kennedy family was a wealthy one and leaned heavily toward the liberal side of things. There were four brothers in Ted's generation and he was the only one who died of natural causes.  Brother Joe died in combat during the Second World War and John and Bobby were assasinated.  As unusual as that is, it is even more unusual, indeed unique, that three brothers simultaneously held  the offices of President of the United States, Attorney General of the United States and Senator in the United States Senate.  I don't think that's ever happend before or since.

On a different level, Teddy Kennedy is the pinnacle example of how a public figure can redeem himself in the court of public opinion. Driving drunk at Chapaquiddick with a young girl who drowned when the car plunged into a salt pond would be enough to destroy the most well-loved of public figures; I thought at the time that Kennedy could never possibly recover from the stigma. While he avoided prosecution (undoubtedly with the help of influence in the right spots), he nevertheless took an incredible beating in the press and television media on a nation-wide basis. Portrayed as a person of privilege, he appeared to be above the law. And such a person is one who the American people love to hate.

And yet as the years went by, Ted Kennedy, the youngest of the Kennedy clan, grew in stature and garnered respect from both sides of the aisle in the Senate. On his Sunday morning show last week, George Stephanopolous asked John McCain if the health care debate in the Senate would have been different had Teddy Kennedy been actively involved. McCain replied that Kennedy would have made all the difference. That's a long, long way from Chapaquiddick.