Say what you want about Ted Kennedy (and most do), this has been a heck of a week. I am part of the generation that watched their parents cry in front of the tube as they watched the JFK funeral procession in 1963 and his brother Bob being shot in the Ambassador Hotel after winning the California presidential primary in 1968.
I have been glued to the TV for the last few days, watching history unfold and an era come to an end. We waited three hours at the JFK Library in Boston Thursday night to pay our respects. Members of the Kennedy family – young and old – spent two days and nights thanking the mourners personally. Classy.
Ted Kennedy witnessed a lot of tragedy in his life. Media pundits list the assassinated brothers. But they forget the additional pain under which Kennedy must have lived.
1. The death in World War II of his oldest brother.
2. The death by plane crash of a sister.
3. The death of his two remaining brothers by assassination.
4. His own near death in a plane crash and six-month hospital recovery.
5. Bone cancer of his son who lost a leg.
6. Lung cancer of his daughter.
7. Depression and addiction of his third child.
8. The death of his nephew in a plane crash.
9. The death of another nephew in a ski accident.
10. The heroin overdose death of another nephew.
11. The botched lobotomy of a sister.
12. The death of a young woman friend by drowning at Chappaquiddick that altered his political personal lives forever.
13. And countless others that we may not know about.
Against this, there are those facets of American life that exist in part or in whole because of Ted Kennedy. A good list is here.
Life is better today if you have a disability, need a student loan; if you are old, black, poor, hispanic, a veteran, an immigrant, a young person voting at age 18, have cancer; if you are a woman seeking equal treatment in college sports; if you are pregnant, hungry, homeless, have AIDS, want to perform community service, or if you are a battered woman.
My favorite is the story told by commentator Chris Mathews, a former top aide to House Speaker Tip O’Neill. Mathews says it was Kennedy who finally told the Irish Republican Army that he would not help them raise money in the U.S. to fund gun-running and violence in Belfast. He cleared the way for Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to come to the U.S. And today, Irish and Protestant kids in Northern Ireland can get to school without being killed.
Kennedy had lots of flaws, many of them played out on national TV in front of all of us. But in the end, society is better off because of him.
