Senator Edward Kennedy Dies at 77

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wptz wrote:

Sen. Edward Kennedy Dies
Senator Succumbs To Brain Cancer

Sen. Edward Moore Kennedy, the Liberal lion of the Senate has died, he was 77 years old.

The ailing Senator had been absent from the health care fight due to his own health battle. He was diagnosed with brain cancer in May of 2008.

The Kennedy family said Kennedy died at his home in Hyannis Por, Mass.

For nearly half a century, Sen. Edward Kennedy has guarded his family's political legacy. Stricken with cancer and as Congress takes up his signature issue, he is tending to his own. Kennedy asked Massachusetts lawmakers to change state law to give Gov. Deval Patrick, a fellow Democrat and supporter of President Barack Obama, the ability to appoint an interim replacement to Kennedy's seat should Kennedy be unable to continue serving.

"It is vital for this Commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election," Kennedy said in a letter to Patrick.

Source: http://www.wptz.com/politics/20558369/detail.html

T
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Sad

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I rather suspect that Carolyn Kennedy will be considered as a step-in.

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I'll miss Edward Kennedy.

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@Thomas,

Very flawed and complex man, but when it came to 'the people' I think his heart was in the right place.

I'm going to reread a copy of the eulogy he gave for John F. Kennedy Jr. I thought that was a fine piece of writing.
This seems like an appropriate time to reread it.

1 Reply

@aidan,

Quote:

"We wish to the new child,
A heart that can be beguiled,
By a flower,
That the wind lifts,
As it passes.
If the storms break for him,
May the trees shake for him,
Their blossoms down.
In the night that he is troubled,
May a friend wake for him,
So that his time be doubled,
And at the end of all loving and love
May the Man above,
Give him a crown."

We thank the millions who have rained blossoms down on John's memory. He and his bride have gone to be with his mother and father, where there will never be an end to love. He was lost on that troubled night, but we will always wake for him, so that his time, which was not doubled, but cut in half, will live forever in our memory, and in our beguiled and broken hearts. We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair, with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But like his father, he had every gift but length of years. We, who have loved him from the day he was born, and watched the remarkable man he became, now bid him farewell.

This was the part I was thinking of - the poem that he in fact- didn't write.
But still it's appropriate, given that Edward was the only Kennedy brother who did live to comb his grey hair.

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@Thomas,

Me too.

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We need a few more Ted Kennedys in politics. I will miss him too.

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Quote:

when it came to 'the people' I think his heart was in the right place.

agreed, sad day.

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Regardless of one's political leanings or what one thinks of him personally, we must all admit that with his passing we have lost a man whose influence in national politics has seldom been surpassed. RIP Senator.

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@Diest TKO,

My first thought -- so close to something happening with health care. I wish he would've lived to see that happen.

Hopefully his legacy will help nudge it into fruition.

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@sozobe,

there's always the chance that this event will spur the democrats to develop a spine. at least I hope so.

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RIP.

I lived in the time of the Kennedys.

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@kuvasz,

kuvasz wrote:

I lived in the time of the Kennedys.

A family dedicated to the future of the country, and a family who has faced death and sacrifice in those efforts. It's pretty amazing when you think about it. In spite of so much loss, they have kept answering the call to service.

T
K
O

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Its sad that the one mistake he made will negate all the good he did in his life in the minds of some people. I will miss the only democrat who seemed to try to improve the common mans life, he will be missed.

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@rabel22,

Well it is a little bit more than one - his drinking problems are another and all his cheating ways.

That being said - I do think whatever he decided politically his heart was in the right place. I didn't always agree with his politics, but he had often times helped people. I know he helped a friend of mine trying to get his family here from a terrible country (his son and he made it out, but his wife and daughter did not).

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@kuvasz,

Quote:

I lived in the time of the Kennedys.

Me too. The very first national election that I was old enough to participate in, I was able to cast my ballot for JFK. The Kennedy name was synonimous with Massachusetts politics. The Kennedies gave the word 'liberal' a good meaning.

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@Diest TKO,

Diest TKO wrote:

A family dedicated to the future of the country, and a family who has faced death and sacrifice in those efforts. It's pretty amazing when you think about it. In spite of so much loss, they have kept answering the call to service.

It would be just as accurate to describe them as a family of trust fund babies who relentlessly sought to exploit the political prominence that JFK gave them.

The truth is a synthesis of the two.

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@georgeob1,

The trust funds got somewhat depleted with payments to the Bessette and Kopechne families - and the Auchinclos trust is heading that way after Jackie's brother's arrest in Oregon. De mortuis, etc, but this hagiography long ago crossed into revisionism.

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@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

My first thought -- so close to something happening with health care. I wish he would've lived to see that happen.

I doubt any of us will live long enough to see anything happen with health care.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

the truth is; that despite what anyone thinks about their politics, the Kennedy Family lost 3 sons to violence in service of the country. and Ted could have sat it out living high on the hog on those trust funds you mentioned.

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Senator Edward Kennedy Dies at 77

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