Ted Kennedy
Aug. 26th, 2009 07:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacTime to have some thoughts about the very recently departed.
Kennedy was 15 years younger than his brother Jack and over six years younger than his brother Bobby, and it showed. In every photo of him with either or both of them, whether in childhood or adulthood (there are a lot of them here at the link "Kennedy Through the Years"), he looks not just far younger but far less mature than either of them. And he felt very much in their shadow, and said so. Running for the Senate at the age of 30, though it seemed audacious (and one opponent sneered about "inheritance," forgetting that there had to be an election first), was his way of trying for an accomplishment that could stand with theirs.
Once there, however, he did something that neither of his senatorial brothers ever did. To them, the Senate was just a platform, a position to hold while focused on outside public events (not just running for the Presidency). Ted decided to become a Senator, working with his colleagues however distasteful - his first committee chairman was the notorious racist James Eastland - to get work done: hearings held and bills passed. In the end, he did more than his brothers did, in office or out, and not just because he lived longer. President O. called him the greatest Senator of our time, and that's not an exaggeration. He maintained dignity in office: he is perhaps the last politician generally known by a nickname (to the end of his days he was Ted or even Teddy) who got called by a formal moniker - Edward M. Kennedy - in formal circumstances. He is also, as of the moment, the third longest-serving Senator of all time. After Bobby's death, Ted never looked like an overage kid again.
People kept saying he should run for President until he actually did, in 1980. That was a mistake. It turned out he had no particular desire or need to be President, but he did have desire and need to stay in the Senate. There his most notable accomplishments, especially as long-serving chair of the Health and Labor Committee, were in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt, helping people less fortunately situated than himself. In a world full of "I'm all right, Jack" libertarians, few can conceive why Kennedy would want to do such a thing. But he did.
But though he was wealthy and famous, his life was constantly being hit by personal tragedy. I doubt there are any other public figures who have had to live through the premature deaths of so many close relatives. By my count, all three of his brothers, a sister, a brother-in-law, three nephews, and a niece by marriage, were all killed or died in accidents at tragically young ages. And that's not counting his other sister who was given a lobotomy and sent to an institution, his nephew who died soon after birth, the one who was tried for rape, or the one who was convicted on drug charges, his son's disfiguring cancer at the age of 12, or his own near-fatal plane crash. Or the sad deaths from disease of a couple other in-laws in their 60s, his father's long suffering from a stroke, or far too many divorces. Enough already.
Then there was that peculiar incident on Chappaquiddick Island. Kennedy never explained his behavior on that occasion, and to my mind he showed poor enough judgment that I would not have voted for him for President. Were I a citizen of Massachusetts, however, I would cheerfully have gone on voting for him for Senator. And judging from the election returns, most felt the same way on both points. Again, I suspect that many cannot grasp the difference. (It may be summarized as: a Senator doesn't have his finger on the button.) It used to be considered the acme of conservative wit to say that more people died in Teddy Kennedy's car than in nuclear power accidents. That wasn't true, even at the time, even limited to the U.S. But no doubt they have some way of weaseling out and claiming that doesn't count.
Ted Kennedy did a lot in the Senate. But there's one thing he didn't do, mostly because he wasn't much involved, despite it being his kind of issue: he didn't get health care reform passed in 1993-94. He tried to make up for that recently, but I don't know how much he could have done even were he not so ill. I doubt his death will change any votes, but if it causes the bill to pass, then it may truly be said that Ted Kennedy died for our sins.
Kennedy was 15 years younger than his brother Jack and over six years younger than his brother Bobby, and it showed. In every photo of him with either or both of them, whether in childhood or adulthood (there are a lot of them here at the link "Kennedy Through the Years"), he looks not just far younger but far less mature than either of them. And he felt very much in their shadow, and said so. Running for the Senate at the age of 30, though it seemed audacious (and one opponent sneered about "inheritance," forgetting that there had to be an election first), was his way of trying for an accomplishment that could stand with theirs.
Once there, however, he did something that neither of his senatorial brothers ever did. To them, the Senate was just a platform, a position to hold while focused on outside public events (not just running for the Presidency). Ted decided to become a Senator, working with his colleagues however distasteful - his first committee chairman was the notorious racist James Eastland - to get work done: hearings held and bills passed. In the end, he did more than his brothers did, in office or out, and not just because he lived longer. President O. called him the greatest Senator of our time, and that's not an exaggeration. He maintained dignity in office: he is perhaps the last politician generally known by a nickname (to the end of his days he was Ted or even Teddy) who got called by a formal moniker - Edward M. Kennedy - in formal circumstances. He is also, as of the moment, the third longest-serving Senator of all time. After Bobby's death, Ted never looked like an overage kid again.
People kept saying he should run for President until he actually did, in 1980. That was a mistake. It turned out he had no particular desire or need to be President, but he did have desire and need to stay in the Senate. There his most notable accomplishments, especially as long-serving chair of the Health and Labor Committee, were in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt, helping people less fortunately situated than himself. In a world full of "I'm all right, Jack" libertarians, few can conceive why Kennedy would want to do such a thing. But he did.
But though he was wealthy and famous, his life was constantly being hit by personal tragedy. I doubt there are any other public figures who have had to live through the premature deaths of so many close relatives. By my count, all three of his brothers, a sister, a brother-in-law, three nephews, and a niece by marriage, were all killed or died in accidents at tragically young ages. And that's not counting his other sister who was given a lobotomy and sent to an institution, his nephew who died soon after birth, the one who was tried for rape, or the one who was convicted on drug charges, his son's disfiguring cancer at the age of 12, or his own near-fatal plane crash. Or the sad deaths from disease of a couple other in-laws in their 60s, his father's long suffering from a stroke, or far too many divorces. Enough already.
Then there was that peculiar incident on Chappaquiddick Island. Kennedy never explained his behavior on that occasion, and to my mind he showed poor enough judgment that I would not have voted for him for President. Were I a citizen of Massachusetts, however, I would cheerfully have gone on voting for him for Senator. And judging from the election returns, most felt the same way on both points. Again, I suspect that many cannot grasp the difference. (It may be summarized as: a Senator doesn't have his finger on the button.) It used to be considered the acme of conservative wit to say that more people died in Teddy Kennedy's car than in nuclear power accidents. That wasn't true, even at the time, even limited to the U.S. But no doubt they have some way of weaseling out and claiming that doesn't count.
Ted Kennedy did a lot in the Senate. But there's one thing he didn't do, mostly because he wasn't much involved, despite it being his kind of issue: he didn't get health care reform passed in 1993-94. He tried to make up for that recently, but I don't know how much he could have done even were he not so ill. I doubt his death will change any votes, but if it causes the bill to pass, then it may truly be said that Ted Kennedy died for our sins.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 05:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 07:43 pm (UTC)Not a perfect life by any means, but one where he did try to do many things as best he could for as many as he could.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 11:52 pm (UTC)