JOHN MCCAIN'S RECOVERY & RETURN TO US SENATE REQUIRES LONG SHOT MIRACLE (ARIZONA SPECIAL ELECTION?)

JOHN MCCAIN'S RECOVERY & RETURN TO US SENATE REQUIRES LONG SHOT MIRACLE:

MCCAIN IS NOW BEING COMPARED TO THE LATE US SENATOR TED KENNEDY WHO DIED OF BRAIN CANCER IN 2009.

WILL A SPECIAL ELECTION BE HELD IN ARIZONA TO REPLACE MCCAIN?

WHEN??


Sources: ABC News, Fox News, NY Times, State of the Nation, Youtube


***** Despite cancer diagnosis, McCain says, 'I'll be back soon'


Battling brain cancer, John McCain on Thursday vowed to return to the Senate, leveling fresh criticism at the Trump administration and aiming a good-natured dig at Republican and Democratic colleagues shaken by news of his diagnosis.

"I greatly appreciate the outpouring of support — unfortunately for my sparring partners in Congress, I'll be back soon, so stand-by!" McCain said in a tweet. Showing no signs of stepping back from political and national security battles, he issued a statement slamming the Trump administration over its Syria policy.

The 80-year-old McCain, the GOP's presidential nominee in 2008 and a six-term Arizona lawmaker, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer, according to doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, who had removed a blood clot above his left eye last Friday.

They also managed to remove all of the tumor that was visible on brain scans.

The senator and his family are considering further treatment, including chemotherapy and radiation, as he recuperates at his home in Arizona. President Donald Trump called the senator on Thursday, said a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private talks.

In a blistering statement through his office, McCain criticized the administration over reports that it was ending a program to assist Syrian opposition forces fighting the government of Bashar Assad.

"If these reports are true, the administration is playing right into the hands of Vladimir Putin," said McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Making any concession to Russia, absent a broader strategy for Syria, is irresponsible and short-sighted."

Battling brain cancer, John McCain on Thursday vowed to return to the Senate, leveling fresh criticism at the Trump administration and aiming a good-natured dig at Republican and Democratic colleagues shaken by news of his diagnosis.

"I greatly appreciate the outpouring of support — unfortunately for my sparring partners in Congress, I'll be back soon, so stand-by!" McCain said in a tweet. Showing no signs of stepping back from political and national security battles, he issued a statement slamming the Trump administration over its Syria policy.

The 80-year-old McCain, the GOP's presidential nominee in 2008 and a six-term Arizona lawmaker, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer, according to doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, who had removed a blood clot above his left eye last Friday. They also managed to remove all of the tumor that was visible on brain scans.

The senator and his family are considering further treatment, including chemotherapy and radiation, as he recuperates at his home in Arizona. President Donald Trump called the senator on Thursday, said a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private talks.

In a blistering statement through his office, McCain criticized the administration over reports that it was ending a program to assist Syrian opposition forces fighting the government of Bashar Assad.

"If these reports are true, the administration is playing right into the hands of Vladimir Putin," said McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Making any concession to Russia, absent a broader strategy for Syria, is irresponsible and short-sighted."

More significantly, McCain's absence complicated Republican leader Mitch McConnell's plans for a Senate vote on a GOP health care bill to erase much of Barack Obama's law. A vote is possible as early as Tuesday, but Republican defections plus McCain's likely absence could sink any chance even to get started.

McCain's closest friend in the Senate, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said that they had spoken by telephone Wednesday night and that the diagnosis had been a shock to McCain. But Graham said "woe is me" is not in McCain's DNA. "One thing John has never been afraid of is death," said Graham, who said he expects McCain to be back at the Capitol.

Prior to a Thursday news conference on immigration legislation, Graham said McCain called him three times.

"He is yelling at me to buck up, I'm so going to buck up," Graham said.

It was unclear how long McCain might be out. Earlier this year, Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., missed several weeks after undergoing back surgery. Former Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., was out for nearly a year after suffering a stroke in 2012.

Meantime, prayers and words of encouragement flowed in Thursday from presidents and Senate colleagues past and present.

"I called Senator John McCain this morning to wish him well and encourage him in his fight.

Instead, he encouraged me," said former President George W. Bush, who prevailed over McCain for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000. "I was impressed by his spirit and determination."

Former Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas said: "Having known John for many decades, I am certain that he is as tough as they come — if anyone can defeat this, it's him. John is a true American hero."

According to the American Brain Tumor Association, more than 12,000 people a year are diagnosed with glioblastoma, the same type of tumor that struck McCain's Democratic colleague in legislative battles, the late Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.

The American Cancer Society puts the five-year survival rate for patients over 55 at about 4 percent.

McCain, a former combat pilot, has a lifetime of near-death experiences — surviving a July 1967 fire and explosion on the USS Forrestal that killed 134 sailors, flying into power lines in Spain, being shot down in October 1967 and falling into Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi, and going through 5 1/2 years in a North Vietnamese prison.

"The Hanoi Hilton couldn't break John McCain's spirit many years ago, so Barbara and I know — with confidence — he and his family will meet this latest battle in his singular life of service with courage and determination," said former President George H.W. Bush.

Commenting on both McCain and the response, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said, "The outpouring of bipartisan respect and love for John McCain as he faces this cancer battle reminds us that after all the meanness there is a human side to politicians. Count this Democrat in John McCain's corner."

In the past, McCain had been treated for melanoma, but this primary tumor is unrelated. Doctors said McCain is recovering from his surgery "amazingly well" and his underlying health is excellent.

The Liberal Lion, Soul Of The Democratic Party & Family Rock Is Laid To Rest Amongst His Slain Brothers....Pres. Obama's Eulogy

MSNBC----


(In a eulogy to Ted Kennedy, President Obama remembers Kennedy as one who used his hardship to become more sensitive to the plights of others.)

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(The late Mass. lawmaker was buried on hallowed ground at Arlington National Cemetery alongside slain brothers John and Robert. NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski reports.)

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(The Kennedy clan pays a final tribute to their "General" and rock.)

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Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was laid to rest alongside slain brothers John and Robert on hallowed ground at Arlington National Cemetery on Saturday evening, celebrated for "the dream he kept alive" across the decades since their deaths.

Crowds lined the streets of two cities on a day that marked the end of a political era — outside Kennedy's funeral in rainy Boston, and later in the day in humid, late-summer Washington. With flags over the Capitol flying at half-staff in his memory, his hearse stopped outside the Senate where he served for 47 years.

"Go now, to your place of rest. And meet the Lord, your God," said the Rev. Daniel Coughlin, the House chaplain.

A few miles away, Kennedy's freshly excavated gravesite was on a gently sloping Virginia hillside, flanked by a pair of maple trees. His brother Robert, killed in 1968 while running for president, lies 100 feet away. It is another 100 to the eternal flame that has burned since 1963 for John F. Kennedy, president when he was assassinated.

Kennedy died Tuesday at 77, more than a year after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

One son, Patrick, wept quietly as another son, Teddy Jr., spoke from the pulpit of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Boston. Teddy Jr. recalled the day years ago, shortly after losing a leg to cancer, that he slipped walking up an icy driveway as he headed out to go sledding. "I started to cry and I said, `I'll never be able to climb up that hill,'" the son said.

"And he lifted me up in his strong, gentle arms and said something I will never forget. He said, `I know you can do it. There is nothing that you can't do.'"

Rain beat down steadily as Kennedy's coffin was borne by a military honor guard into the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and again when it was brought back out for the flight to Washington and the military cemetery in Virginia just across the Potomac River from Washington.

In life, the senator had visited the burial ground often to mourn his brothers, John and Robert, killed in their 40s, more than a generation ago, by assassins' bullets.

"He was given a gift of time that his brothers were not. And he used that time to touch as many lives and right as many wrongs as the years would allow," Obama said in a eulogy that also gently made mention of Kennedy's "personal failings and setbacks."

As a member of the Senate, Kennedy was a "veritable force of nature," the president said. But more than that, the "baby of the family who became its patriarch, the restless dreamer who became its rock."

Those left behind to mourn "grieve his passing with the memories he gave, the good he did, the dream he kept alive" Obama said inside the packed church.

Hundreds lined nearby sidewalks, ignoring the rain, as the funeral procession passed.

"I said to myself this morning, 'No matter what the weather, I'm going, I don't care if I have to swim," said Lillian Bennett, 59, who added she was a longtime Kennedy supporter and determined to get as close as she could to the invitation-only funeral.

"The Mass of Christian burial weaves together memory and hope," said the Rev. Mark R. Hession, parish priest at the church in a working class neighborhood of Boston.

Part of history

There was plenty of both in a two-hour service filled with references to Kennedy's political accomplishments and personal recollections of his private life. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and tenor Placido Domingo provided musical grace notes.

Kennedy's widow, Vicki, his sole surviving sibling, Jean, and Robert Kennedy's widow, Ethel, carefully arranged the cloth funeral pall atop the coffin.

Like others, Teddy Jr., touched on his father's legacy.

"He answered Uncle Joe's call to patriotism, Uncle Jack's call to public service and Bobby's determination to seek a newer world. Unlike them, he lived to be a grandfather," he said.

Joseph Kennedy Jr. died in World War II, John F. Kennedy was the nation's 35th president when he was assassinated in 1963 and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was killed five years later as he campaigned for the presidency.

Saturday's events marked the end of four days of public and private mourning meant to emphasize Kennedy's 47 years in the Senate from Massachusetts, his standing as the foremost liberal Democrat of the late 20th century yet a legislator who courted compromise with Republicans, a family man and last heir to a dynasty that began in the years after World War II.

Thousands of mourners filed past his flag-draped coffin earlier in the week when Kennedy lay in repose at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. Republicans and Democrats alike recalled his political career in a bipartisan evening of laughter-filled speechmaking on Friday.

Even the church had special meaning for the family. Kennedy prayed there daily several years ago during his daughter Kara's successful battle with lung cancer.

Bi-partisan Memorial

Friday night, Kennedy was remembered at a bipartisan memorial service whose speakers included Sens. John McCain and John Kerry, Vice President Joe Biden and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, JFK's daughter.

"Now Teddy has become a part of history," said Schlossberg, "and we are the ones who will have to do all the things he would have done, for us, for each other and for our country."

Saturday's ceremony evoked the funerals of Kennedy's slain brothers. It was at RFK's rites in 1968 that Edward Kennedy famously memorialized Robert.

"My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

Sources: MSNBC

Thousands Of Bostonians & Many Others Pay Last Respects To The Liberal Lion

MSNBC----


(Crowds lined the route of a motorcade that carried the casket of the late Senator Ted Kennedy on from the family's Cape Cod compound to the city of Boston Thursday, where the Senator's body will lie in repose for public viewing at the JFK Library through Friday. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.)

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(Bostonians mourn one of their own.)

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Mourners filed by the casket of Sen. Edward Kennedy as he lay in repose Thursday in his slain brother's presidential library, paying their respects to one of the longest-serving U.S. lawmakers and the last political giant of the Kennedy family.

Thousands of people had waited for the public viewing at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, lining up for hours before the doors opened around 6 p.m. ET. Officials were allowing people to enter in groups of 35 to 40.

The casket arrived after a motorcade traveled 70 miles from the family compound in Cape Cod past sites of significance to his life. Thousands of people along the route cheered as the motorcade drove through Boston, bidding farewell to the last of the famed Kennedy brothers and mark the end of a national political chapter that was both triumphant and tragic. He is to be buried Saturday at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, near Washington, D.C.

With a bugler playing taps, a rifle squad firing a salute and pallbearers representing each branch of the military, Kennedy will be laid to rest in a private funeral. Plans call for Kennedy to be buried in early evening near his slain brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

The motorcade started its trip in Hyannis Port, at the Cape Cod home where Kennedy's family attended a private Mass. Eighty-five Kennedy relatives traveled with the senator's body to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, where the Senate's third-longest-serving member will lie in repose.

Among those accompanying Kennedy were nieces Caroline, daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, and Maria Shriver, daughter of his late sister Eunice; and his son Patrick Kennedy, a U.S. congressman.

Kennedy's body will lie in repose for a two-day public viewing. A contingent of friends and family sat vigil, including a federal judge, the family of an Iraq war soldier, a Sept. 11 widow, former staffers, and longtime friends.

For many who lined the route that the hearse carrying his body took from Cape Cod to Boston, it was hard to untangle Kennedy’s larger-than-life role as statesman from his role as neighbor and local celebrity, whether he was taking a turn conducting the Boston Pops or throwing out the first pitch for the Red Sox.

“It was Teddy’s home team. It just seemed appropriate to leave him the cap,” said James Jenner, 28, placing a Sox cap he was wearing near the entrance to the library. “It symbolizes everything that he loved about his home state and everything he was outside the Senate.”

Before the motorcade departed, mourners crowded the end of the barricaded road leading to the family compound.

Virginia Cain, 54, said she walked about 2 miles from her summer home in Centerville so she could watch the procession and witness history.

“I can remember where I was when President Kennedy died, and I’ll remember where I was when the senator left Hyannis Port,” she said.

A bouquet of white and yellow lilies lay on the lawn of David Nylan’s vacation rental near the Kennedy home, where a U.S. flag flew at half-staff in Kennedy’s memory.

“The Kennedys and Hyannis and the Cape, they just kind of go hand in hand,” said Nylan, 38, who said people had been stopping near his house to leave flowers since Kennedy died late Tuesday.

On Main Street in downtown Hyannis, flags, flowers and personal notes lay at the base of a flagpole outside the John F. Kennedy Museum, where about two dozen people gathered.

Someone had placed an old Kennedy campaign sign with a new inscription: “God bless Ted, the last was first,” referring to his ascension to political greatness after his two older brothers were assassinated.

Several enlarged photos showed events in Kennedy’s life — meeting with Martin Luther King Jr., reading to a school girl. A rosary hung over a picture of Kennedy standing in his office.

Echoes of the Kennedy history were hard to miss as the motorcade traveled through the city.

Kennedy’s wife, Vicki, put her hand over her heart as the procession rolled down Hanover Street in the North End neighborhood, past St. Stephen’s Church, where his mother, Rose, was baptized and where Kennedy later eulogized her. The crowd applauded, and his niece Caroline and other family members acknowledged them with a wave from their cars.

“When a member of the Kennedy family passes, it’s like family. It feels like family,” said Jeanne Pagano, 54, who was on the sidewalk outside the church. “I really loved the man and the family. I loved them.”

Joanne Caruso, of Newton, picked up her sons — 12-year-old Tonino and 9-year-old Christian Sarandrea — early from summer camp to say goodbye to Kennedy. The boys carried a photo of their father, Antonio, with Kennedy.

“We get to be a part of a historic history, a historical moment,” Tonino said as they waited. “The day we went to see Mr. Kennedy.”

After leaving the church, the motorcade traveled across the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway created by the Big Dig highway project, which Kennedy helped shepherd through the Senate. The park occupies the same stretch of land once dominated by an elevated expressway named after John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, Rose’s father and a patriarch of the Kennedy-Fitzgerald clan.

Kennedy’s motorcade then paused at Faneuil Hall, where the historic bell rang 47 times — once for each of Kennedy’s years in the Senate.

From there the motorcade passed the Massachusetts Statehouse with its life-size statue of John F. Kennedy, which was opened to tourists Thursday for the first time since just after the Sept. 11 attacks.

There, too, onlookers watched silently, waiting for the motorcade to turn and pass 122 Bowdoin Street, where Kennedy opened his first office as an assistant district attorney and where President Kennedy lived while running for Congress in 1946.

People gather to pay respects
After passing by the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in the city’s Government Center complex, the motorcade headed to the library, where Kennedy’s body will lie in repose until his Saturday funeral. Just before arriving at the museum, the motorcade will pass the JFK stop on the city’s subway system.

Scott Howe, 46, and his 15-year-old son, Austin, from Laurel, Md., were among those gathering outside the library and planned to pay their respects to Kennedy on Thursday night.

“He seemed to really care about his constituents,” Scott Howe said. “The Kennedy family — despite the money they had, had a big streak of altruism.”

The family planned an invitation-only private memorial service for Friday evening at the library.

All the living presidents were expected to attend the funeral Mass on Saturday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica — commonly known as the Mission Church — in Boston’s working-class Mission Hill neighborhood. President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver the eulogy.

Shortly before the Mass, 44 sitting senators and 10 former senators will be among a group of about 100 dignitaries who will pay their respects to Kennedy at the library before making their way to the church.

Included in the group is former Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana, who pulled Kennedy from the wreckage of a small plane that crashed near Springfield, Mass., in June 1964. The pilot and a legislative aide were killed, and Kennedy suffered a broken back that caused him pain the rest of his life.

“The Impossible Dream,” Kennedy’s favorite song, from the musical “Man of La Mancha,” will be played at one of the services, according to the person familiar with the arrangements.

The city may soon have one more Kennedy landmark. Planning is already under way for a building to house a new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate.

Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening near his assassinated brothers — former President Kennedy and former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy — at Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia.

Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening near his slain brothers — former President Kennedy and former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy — at Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia.




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Sources: MSNBC, Google Maps

World, Dems & Repubs, Supporters & Opponents of Health Care Reform All Mourn Sen. Ted Kennedy's Death

Washington Post, MSNBC, National Post, Newsweek---

(Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) penned this song in honor of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.)



U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, one of the longest-serving senators in U.S. history and a towering figure in the Democratic Party, died at age 77.

Here are some reactions to the news:

KENNEDY FAMILY STATEMENT -- "We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it's hard to imagine any of them without him."

U.S. SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID -- "It was the thrill of my lifetime to work with Ted Kennedy. He was a friend, the model of public service and an American icon. As we mourn his loss, we rededicate ourselves to the causes for which he so dutifully dedicated his life. Senator Kennedy's legacy stands with the greatest, the most devoted, the most patriotic men and women to ever serve in these halls... The liberal lion's mighty roar may now fall silent, but his dream shall never die."

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN -- "Senator Edward Kennedy will be mourned not just in America but in every continent. He is admired around the world as the Senator of Senators. He led the world in championing children's education and health care, and believed that every single child should have the chance to realize their potential to the full."

IRISH PRIME MINISTER BRIAN COWEN -- "Ted hailed from a most famous Irish-American family, and through his own endeavors and achievement, he has added further luster to the reputation of a great family . . . In good days and bad, Ted Kennedy worked valiantly for the cause of peace on this island. He played a particularly important role in the formative days of the Northern Ireland Peace Process in the early to mid-1990s. . . . Today, America has lost a great and respected statesman and Ireland has lost a long-standing and true friend."

FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER TONY BLAIR -- "Senator Kennedy was a figure who inspired admiration, respect and devotion not just in America but around the world. He was a true public servant committed to the values of fairness, justice and opportunity."

ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU -- "[Senator] Kennedy has been a friend for 30 years, a great American patriot, a great champion of a better world, a great friend of Israel. He will be sorely missed."

FORMER U.S. FIRST LADY NANCY REAGAN -- "Given our political differences, people are sometimes surprised by how close Ronnie and I have been to the Kennedy family. In recent years, Ted and I found our common ground in stem cell research, and I considered him an ally and a dear friend. I will miss him."

NANCY PELOSI, DEMOCRATIC SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE -- "Rooted in his deep patriotism, his abiding faith, and his deep concern for the least among us, no one has done more than Senator Kennedy to educate our children, care for our seniors, and ensure equality for all Americans."

CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, husband of Kennedy's niece Maria Shriver and a Republican -- "He was known to the world as the Lion of the Senate, a champion of social justice and a political icon... Teddy inspired our country through his dedication to health care reform, his commitment to social justice, and his devotion to a life of public service."

SENATOR ORRIN HATCH, REPUBLICAN OF UTAH -- "Today America lost a great elder statesman, a committed public servant, and leader of the Senate. And today I lost a treasured friend. Ted Kennedy was an iconic, larger than life United States senator whose influence cannot be overstated. Many have come before, and many will come after, but Ted Kennedy's name will always be remembered as someone who lived and breathed the United States Senate and the work completed within its chamber."


Both Parties Mourn Loss of Kennedy in Health-Care Debate

As Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's death suddenly quieted the national debate over health-care reform, some Democratic lawmakers suggested Wednesday that the passing of such a prominent advocate for universal health coverage may represent an opportunity to hit the reset button on that issue.

But whether that would improve the odds of passing a health-care bill was much less clear. Leading Republican senators hinted that no Democrat seemed ready to assume Kennedy's traditional role both in crafting a political compromise and in selling it to the Democratic base.

When the veteran lawmaker died Tuesday night of brain cancer, the cause he long championed stood at a dangerous crossroads. As President Obama's top domestic goal, a health-care reform bill had advanced further in Congress than any such effort in decades, only to spark a partisan brawl upon lawmakers' return home for the August recess. With every acrimonious town hall meeting, the fate of a final deal seemed to grow less certain.

With Congress's August recess nearing its end, the window is closing for opponents of a health-care overhaul to further undercut its public support before lawmakers resume working on the bill. Meanwhile, Kennedy's memorial services and burial are likely to draw more public attention to his political career, and to the issues he held dear -- including universal health insurance, which he once called "the cause of my life."

"My hope is that this will maybe cause people to take a breath, step back, and start talking with each other again, in more civil tones about what needs to be done, because that's what Teddy would do," said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who has served as temporary chairman of the Senate health committee in Kennedy's absence.

"I hope that members of Congress will take a moment to reflect on Ted Kennedy's approach to issues, where he was passionate about his beliefs but willing to work with others to get things done, for the greater good," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). "We need to renew that spirit in the current debate, not just about health care."

Three GOP senators suggested in their remembrances of Kennedy that Democrats will need more than respectful conversation to gain bipartisan support for a health-care bill. Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Orrin Hatch (Utah) and Judd Gregg (N.H.) lamented Kennedy's absence in the negotiations.

"I think we may have made progress on this health-care issue if he had been there," McCain told CNN. "He had this unique capability to sit people down at a table together -- and I've been there on numerous occasions -- and really negotiate, which means concessions. And so, he not only will be missed, but he has been missed."

"I believe if he had been active the last few months, we would have some sort of consensus agreement," said Gregg, a passionate advocate of Medicare reform who has sat out Senate deliberations on perhaps the most extensive revisions ever to that program.

"We would have worked it out. We would have worked it out on a bipartisan basis," Hatch, who co-authored numerous health-care bills with Kennedy over the years, said on CNN. "I'll be happy to work in a bipartisan basis any day, any time . . . but it's got to be on something that's good and not just some partisan hack job."

Other Republicans played down prospects that opponents of reform would reconsider their position. "Certainly people honor Sen. Ted Kennedy for all of his work," Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) told CNBC. "But at the end of the day, this is a democracy, and I think the voice of the people have been heard quite loudly in the month of August."

The senior Senate Democrat, Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.), called for passage of health-care reform in Kennedy's honor. "As a tribute to his commitment to his ideals, let us stop the shouting and name-calling and have a civilized debate on health-care reform, which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name," he said.

Byrd's call drew jeers from conservative commentators. Michelle Malkin called the idea "crass," and Sean Hannity said that Kennedy's death "is not added reason to push for passage" and that "Obama-care deserves to be judged on its merits."

But liberal activist groups were quick to join Byrd in his call. MoveOn.org urged its supporters "to re-commit ourselves to achieving the thing that mattered most" to Kennedy, and Democrats.com called for lawmakers to pass "real health reform -- including a strong public option."

Kennedy's credibility with such groups tended to overcome their resistance to compromise as capitulation, and his skill as an expert dealmaker was such that when he worked with President George W. Bush to pass the No Child Left Behind education bill, he persuaded stalwart Democrats to vote with him on the controversial legislation.

"He brought to the table the absolute confidence of the liberal end of the spectrum, and so when he reached an agreement, there wasn't any sort of second-guessing of him," Gregg said.

Persuading the Democratic base to bend on provisions otherwise held as fundamental may be the single most important challenge for party leaders in the weeks ahead.

Sources: Washington Post, MSNBC, Newsweek, National Post, Photobucket

Sen Edward "Ted" Kennedy's Body Will Lie In Repose For Two Days...Private Mass Held At Hyannis Port

MSNBC----

(As plans are made for Sen. Edward Kennedy’s funeral, his family and friends remember his life and legacy. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports from Hyannis Port, Mass.)

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(NBC's Brian Williams reports from the home of the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, Mass., where the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy early Wednesday morning brought an end to an epic era in American politics.)

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Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's body will travel more than 70 miles from his Cape Cod home to Boston to lie in repose in a presidential library he helped develop in tribute to one of his slain brothers.

Family members will attend a private Mass at Kennedy's Hyannis Port compound at noon Thursday, and the motorcade is scheduled to leave around an hour later. It will pass sites that were significant to the senator on the way to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, where his body will lie in repose until Friday, a Senate office statement said.

The motorcade will go by St. Stephen's Church, where his mother, Rose, was baptized and her funeral Mass celebrated; cross the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, the Boston park he helped create and is named after his mother; pass historic Faneuil Hall, where Boston Mayor Thomas Menino will repeatedly ring the bell; and then move by the site of Kennedy's first office as an assistant district attorney.

A military honor guard will join members of his family, friends and current and former staff to stand vigil around the clock as thousands are expected to file past the closed casket to pay their respects. The library will remain open until the last person comes through. Several large photographs will be in the room, showing the senator at different stages of his life.

Obama, ex-presidents to attend Mass

An invitation-only memorial service will be held at the library Friday evening. On Saturday, President Barack Obama will speak at a private funeral mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica — commonly known as the Mission Church — in Boston's Mission Hill neighborhood.

A church official said former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush also are expected to attend the Mass at the cavernous basilica built in 1878.

Kennedy prayed at the basilica every day in 2003 as his daughter, Kara, was successfully treated for lung cancer at a nearby hospital. The church eventually became a place of hope and optimism for the senator, especially during his yearlong battle with brain cancer before he died Tuesday at age 77.

Burial near slain brothers

Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening near his slain brothers — former President Kennedy and former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy — at the Arlington National Cemetery, in Virginia. Other family members buried on the famous hillside include former first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and the former president's baby son, Patrick, who died after two days.

Kennedy is eligible for burial at Arlington because of his service in Congress as well as his two years in the Army from 1951 to 1953. He was a private first class and served in the military police at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, located at that time in Paris.

On Wednesday night, the Lightship Nantucket — the vessel that marked limits of the dangerous Nantucket Shoals in Massachusetts for more than 150 years — pulled up outside the Kennedy compound as dusk fell and illuminated the late senator's schooner as a tribute.


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Sources: MSNBC, Wikipedia, Google Maps

What's Next For The Kennedy Political Legacy & The Spirit of Camelot? Is It Gone Forever?

MSNBC----


(Sen. Ted Kennedy endorses than Sen. Barack Obama on the campaign trail.)



(Will Sen Ted Kennedy's death be the end of a Political Era?)

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(In one of his final personal interviews, Sen. Ted Kennedy talks with Bigthink.com about his childhood, his brothers, and his life in politics.)

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(Remembering Ted Kennedy)

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(The DNC's tribute to Sen Ted Kennedy.)



With Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death comes not only the end of a political dynasty, but also of one of the most enduring — and cherished — American myths. Camelot is no more.

The myth was so powerful that it transcended generations. Unlike many allusions to the 1960s, it needs no explanation to those who don’t remember that time.

John F. Kennedy, the eldest brother, was King Arthur, and wife Jackie his Guinevere. Bobby, the second brother, was Lancelot, defender of the powerless and, it is said, secretly in love with the queen.

And then there was the youngest of them all: Teddy, in whom the best and the worst of everything Kennedy seemed to come together.

It was he who would ultimately become this Camelot’s Galahad. Though far from perfect and nowhere near a man of great virtue, Edward M. Kennedy was the knight who ultimately set for himself a quest. Its object was no less momentous than the Holy Grail itself: universal health care.

Embracing the Legend

If the analogy is imperfect, it is only because of the myth to which it is attached. The Camelot of legend never existed, except in the minds of people who needed there to be such a place. It and the people in it were always what we wanted — and needed — them to be.

This is why the myth is so powerful. Camelot was nothing more or less than a reflection of the Garden of Eden, that perfect place inhabited by perfect people in some bygone age when such places and such people existed.

Ted Kennedy undoubtedly understood that. He certainly embraced it, idolizing his older brothers, fully believing that there was a happily-ever-after that men could forge, if only they were bold enough to do so.

And in the end, Ted Kennedy also came closer to the myth than his brothers ever could. For that, he could thank the one gift his brothers never had: the opportunity to live his life to its natural end.

An ailing Arthur

John F. Kennedy may have been president when “Camelot” was a hit on Broadway, but he was no King Arthur. Arthur was virtuous and pure, a powerful warrior glowing with health. JFK only looked the part.

His greatest virtue was his movie-star good looks, which projected the image of other virtues that we willingly ascribed to him. In real life, he was, as Mae West said of herself, “as pure as the driven slush.”

Physically, he looked the part of the warrior who had survived the destruction of PT 109 in the Pacific theater during World War II and had swum to safety dragging one of his injured crewmen with him. But in reality, according to his biographer, Robert Dallek, he was a physical wreck. The newsreels showed him playing touch football on the White House lawn. They did not show the massive doses of medications that allowed him to do so.

To get through the days, Kennedy took, “steroids for his Addison's disease, pain-killers for his back, antispasmodics for his colitis, antibiotics for urinary-tract infections, antihistamines for allergies and, on at least one occasion, an antipsychotic (though only for two days) for a severe mood change that Jackie Kennedy believed had been brought on by the antihistamines,” Dallek wrote. At times, the hero of America’s Camelot reportedly could not even put on his own shoes and socks.

As president, JFK was inspirational. He also nearly plunged the world into nuclear war. But none of it mattered. In 20th-century America, as in every other culture from the birth of civilization, image trumps reality.

It is no different today. Humans have never been very good at letting the facts get in the way of a good story. And the story of the Kennedys is more than good; it is great, the stuff that myths are made of.

This is a family that Aeschylus and Sophocles and Homer would have written about, a family that Norse poets would have immortalized in sagas, a family that medieval troubadours would have sung about, a family that Shakespeare would have devoted a trilogy to, a family that America transformed into a vision of its ideal self.

Expectations and excess

Teddy was the kid brother of that family, the youngest kid who was faced with the Everest of expectations established by his three older brothers.

Joseph Jr. had died heroically as a pilot defending London against the Nazi blitz. Jack, the second-oldest, became the embodiment of the Camelot myth that would follow the family to the present. Bobby, the third brother, was the brilliant orator and idealist who was on his way to the White House in 1968 when he was cut down by an assassin’s bullet.

It was a lot to live up to. It was both a curse and a blessing that Teddy alone among the brothers lived out his natural life. It was a curse because the reality of his personal life became public at Chappaquiddick, when Mary Jo Kopechne, a young campaign worker, died, and the famous senator neglected for nine hours to tell anyone about it.

There was more. After his unsuccessful challenge to incumbent President Jimmy Carter in 1980, Ted Kennedy outraged his Catholic base by divorcing his wife, Joan.

Much of the 1980s seemed to be a blur of excess, of public drunkenness and lechery. In a Greek tragedy, that would have been the last act: a great man brought down by his own excesses, due to the original sin of hubris.

Remorse and Redemption

But life doesn’t always imitate art. In the 1990s, Ted Kennedy met his second wife, Vicki, and finally became what the Kennedy myth had always held him and his brothers to be.

His redemption began with a very public confession of his own sins. In a remarkable 1991 speech at Harvard, the senior senator from Massachusetts did something that we were not accustomed to seeing our political heroes do: He admitted to being less than what he seemed.

“I recognize my own shortcomings, the faults and the conduct of my private life,” he said in the distinctive Kennedy accent. “I realize that I alone am responsible for them, and I am the one who must confront them.”

In an interview with NBC News the following year, he explained that speech, saying, “I owed them some explanation, or at least the recognition that I understood.”

That would be what ultimately set Ted Kennedy apart, and what transformed him into a man who would be eulogized as one of the greatest senators in American history. Unlike so many others, Ted Kennedy proved by his actions that he really did understand.

His legislative resume is a towering testament to his ideals. And in those ideals, he was always consistent. His brother Bobby had swung from the right to the left of the political scale, and Jack had been a centrist and a political pragmatist. But Ted was consistent for four decades in his defense of the least of us, in his belief in the common man and woman.

Repentance and Respect

It takes more than age to become known as a statesman. Strom Thurmond served forever in the Senate without ever being accused of such a thing. Ted Kennedy didn’t have that distinction given to him. He earned it.

He would give a lot of credit to his second wife, Vicki, in whom he found a soul mate and an inner peace that had been lacking in his life. He told NBC that those later years were “a different plateau of my life; a different chapter of my life.”

In the end, there would be a final bit of Kennedy tragedy in his death. It could not be said that he died too young; at 77, he had lived as full a life as anyone could hope for. It was rife with imperfection, but that proves nothing except that he was human. Much as the mythmakers would have us believe otherwise, there are none of us who are perfect, none of us who are without sin.

What made him heroic to many in the end was that he accepted his sins, repented, and fulfilled his vow to do better. By his final days, he was as respected a man on both sides of the aisle as is ever likely to be found in Washington, D.C.

Yet still he died too soon. The great dream of his career, the Holy Grail that this knight of Camelot spent a lifetime seeking, had been to see universal health care in the United States. And at just the moment that that goal was finally coming into sight, a moment when his leadership and intellect were most desperately needed, he died.

The finish line of a lifelong race had been in sight. He never reached it.

Sophocles and Shakespeare could have done something with that. So could have Lerner and Loewe.


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Sources: MSNBC, C-Span, CBC News, Youtube, Google Maps

Sen. Ted Kennedy To Join His Older Brothers At Arlington Cemetery On Saturday...Pres. Obama To Deliver Eulogy

MSNBC----



Kennedy Family statement:

Edward M. Kennedy — the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply — died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port. We’ve lost the irreplaceable centre of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever. We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it’s hard to imagine any of them without him.

(As plans are made for Sen. Edward Kennedy’s funeral, his family and friends remember his life and legacy. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports from Hyannis Port, Mass.)

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A funeral Mass for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will be celebrated Saturday at a Boston church, and he will be buried later that day at Arlington National Cemetery near his slain brothers, former President John F. Kennedy and former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

Kennedy died late Tuesday at age 77 after a yearlong struggle with brain cancer.

On Thursday morning, Kennedy's family will travel by motorcade with his body from their compound on Cape Cod, Mass., to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. His body will lie in repose there for public viewing on Thursday and Friday.

The Kennedys have planned a private memorial service at the library for Friday night, according to a schedule of events released by Kennedy's Senate office. Vice President Joseph Biden and Sens. John Kerry and John McCain will be among the speakers, The New York Times reported.

On Saturday morning, a funeral Mass for the late senator will be celebrated at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica — commonly known as the Mission Church — in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston. The 1,300-seat basilica on Tremont Street, built in the 1870s, was where Kennedy prayed frequently in 2003 while his daughter, Kara, successfully battled her own cancer.

"Over time, the Basilica took on special meaning for him as a place of hope and optimism," the family statement said.

President Barack Obama will speak at the Mass, according to the Times.

Slain brothers

Kennedy's body will be flown to Virginia for a 5 p.m. Saturday private burial service at Arlington, the famous hillside that is the final resting site of others from the storied clan, including former first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.

At the site of the eternal flame rest four Kennedy family members: the former president and his wife; their baby son, Patrick, who died after two days; and a stillborn child. Robert Kennedy's grave is a short distance away.

Edward Kennedy will be buried approximately 95 feet south of Robert's grave, NBC News reported.

"Senator Kennedy spent more days than most at Arlington visiting the graves of his beloved brothers and paying tribute to the fallen men and women of Massachusetts who gave their lives for our country," the family statement said.

Final resting place

A senior defense official told the AP the Kennedy family approached the Army some time ago to explore the possibility of burying the senator at Arlington, the nation's most celebrated burial ground of fallen military and the resting place of astronauts, Supreme Court justices and other giants in American history.

Kennedy is eligible for burial at Arlington by virtue of his service in Congress as well as his two years in the Army, 1951 to 1953. He was a private first class and served in the military police at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, then located in Paris and now in Belgium.

In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations be made to educational programming at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. The family has set up a Web site in memory of Kennedy where people can post their memories.

In a separate tribute, Obama has ordered that flags fly at half-staff on federal buildings and at the White House in Kennedy's memory.


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Pres. Obama, VP Biden Pays Tribute To Sen. Ted Kennedy..."He Was The Greatest Senator Of Our Time"

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(President Obama reflects on the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy, who passed away of brain cancer at the age of 77.)

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(Vice-President Biden speaks about Clean Energy and reflects on the life & death of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.)

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The President spoke at 9:57 this morning at Blue Heron Farm in Chilmark, Massachusetts:

THE PRESIDENT: I wanted to say a few words this morning about the passing of an extraordinary leader, Senator Edward Kennedy.

Over the past several years, I've had the honor to call Teddy a colleague, a counselor, and a friend. And even though we have known this day was coming for some time now, we awaited it with no small amount of dread.

Since Teddy's diagnosis last year, we've seen the courage with which he battled his illness. And while these months have no doubt been difficult for him, they've also let him hear from people in every corner of our nation and from around the world just how much he meant to all of us. His fight has given us the opportunity we were denied when his brothers John and Robert were taken from us: the blessing of time to say thank you -- and goodbye.

The outpouring of love, gratitude, and fond memories to which we've all borne witness is a testament to the way this singular figure in American history touched so many lives. His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws and reflected in millions of lives -- in seniors who know new dignity, in families that know new opportunity, in children who know education's promise, and in all who can pursue their dream in an America that is more equal and more just -- including myself.

The Kennedy name is synonymous with the Democratic Party. And at times, Ted was the target of partisan campaign attacks. But in the United States Senate, I can think of no one who engendered greater respect or affection from members of both sides of the aisle. His seriousness of purpose was perpetually matched by humility, warmth, and good cheer. He could passionately battle others and do so peerlessly on the Senate floor for the causes that he held dear, and yet still maintain warm friendships across party lines.

And that's one reason he became not only one of the greatest senators of our time, but one of the most accomplished Americans ever to serve our democracy.

His extraordinary life on this earth has come to an end. And the extraordinary good that he did lives on. For his family, he was a guardian. For America, he was the defender of a dream.

I spoke earlier this morning to Senator Kennedy's beloved wife, Vicki, who was to the end such a wonderful source of encouragement and strength. Our thoughts and prayers are with her, his children Kara, Edward, and Patrick; his stepchildren Curran and Caroline; the entire Kennedy family; decades' worth of his staff; the people of Massachusetts; and all Americans who, like us, loved Ted Kennedy.


President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the nation lost "the greatest United States senator of our time" with the death of Ted Kennedy.

"For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts," Obama said of the Massachusetts senator, who died Tuesday at his home on Cape Cod, Mass., after a yearlong struggle with brain cancer. He was 77.

A senior administration official said Obama was told of Kennedy's death shortly after 2 a.m. Wednesday, and spoke with the senator's widow, Victoria, around 2:25 a.m.

The president, vacationing at Martha's Vineyard off the Massachusetts coast, thanked Kennedy for "his wise counsel" during Obama's short time serving as a senator from Illinois.

"I cherished his confidence and momentous support in my race for the presidency," Obama added. Kennedy and his niece Caroline shook up the Democratic establishment in January 2008 when they endorsed Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton for the party's nomination for president.

Backed Obama

Exactly one year before his death, Kennedy gave a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, where Obama accepted the presidential nomination. Kennedy returned to the Capitol in January to see Obama sworn in as the nation's first black president, but suffered a seizure at a celebratory luncheon afterward.

He was away from the Senate for much of this year, leading to speculation about the impact of his absence on Obama's health care proposals. Still, Obama said, "even as he waged a valiant struggle with a mortal illness, I've profited as president from his encouragement and wisdom."

"An important chapter in our history has come to an end," Obama said. "Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States Senator of our time."

Sources: MSNBC, Whitehouse.gov

Senator Ted Kennedy "The Last Lion", Health Care Reform Advocate & Civil Rights Beacon Is Dead At 77 From Brain Cancer

MSNBC, Washington Post, Huffington Post----


(NBC's Brian Williams looks back at the charmed childhood, family tragedies and political career of U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.)

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(Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has died at the age of 77 after battling a brain tumor. TODAY’s Matt Lauer takes a look back at the liberal stalwart’s remarkable life and political career.)

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(NBC’s Anne Thompson reports from Hyannis Port, Mass., outside the Kennedy family's home.)

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BOSTON - Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate and haunted bearer of the Camelot torch after two of his brothers fell to assassins' bullets, has died at his home in Hyannis Port after battling a brain tumor. He was 77.

In nearly 50 years in the Senate, Kennedy served alongside 10 presidents — his brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy among them — compiling an impressive list of legislative achievements on health care, civil rights, education, immigration and more.

His only run for the White House ended in defeat in 1980. More than a quarter-century later, he handed then-Sen. Barack Obama an endorsement at a critical point in the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, explicitly likening the young contender to President Kennedy.

To the American public, Kennedy — known to friends and foes alike simply as Ted — was best known as the last surviving son of America's most glamorous political family, father figure and, memorably, eulogist of an Irish-American clan plagued again and again by tragedy.

His family announced his death in a brief statement released early Wednesday.

"We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever," the statement said. "We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all."

A few hours later, two vans left the family compound at Hyannis Port in pre-dawn darkness. Both bore hearse license plates — with the word "hearse" blacked out.

There was no immediate word on funeral arrangements. Two of Kennedy's brothers, John and Robert, are buried at Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington.

President Obama, on vacation in Martha's Vineyard, Mass., said he and the first lady were “heartbroken” to hear of Kennedy's passing.

“An important chapter in our history has come to an end. Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States Senator of our time,” Obama said.

Young Senator

Kennedy was elected to the Senate in 1962, taking the seat that his brother John had occupied before winning the White House, and served longer than all but two senators in history.

His own hopes of reaching the White House were damaged — perhaps doomed — in 1969 by the scandal that came to be known as Chappaquiddick, an auto accident that left a young woman dead.

He sought the White House more than a decade later, lost the Democratic nomination to President Jimmy Carter, and bowed out with a stirring valedictory that echoed across the decades: "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die."

Kennedy was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor in May 2008 and underwent surgery and a grueling regimen of radiation and chemotherapy.

Ally and a dear friend

Kennedy's death triggered an outpouring of superlatives.

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan said in a statement that her husband and Kennedy "could always find common ground, and they had great respect for one another."

She added that she considered Kennedy "an ally and a dear friend. I will miss him."

Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose wife, Maria Shriver, was Kennedy's niece, praised “the rock of our family: a loving husband, father, brother and uncle.”

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said that both the Kennedy family and the Senate have "lost our patriarch" and vowed Congress would renew the push for the cause of Kennedy's life, health care reform.

Building a legacy

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Kennedy's son Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., said his father had defied the predictions of doctors by surviving more than a year with his fight against brain cancer.

The younger Kennedy also said his father's legacy was built largely in the Senate.

"He has authored more pieces of major legislation than any other United States senator," Patrick Kennedy said. "He is the penultimate senator. I don't need to exaggerate when I talk about my father. That's the amazing thing. He breaks all the records himself."

Ted Kennedy made a surprise return to the Capitol last summer to cast the decisive vote for the Democrats on Medicare. He made sure he was there again last January to see his former Senate colleague Barack Obama sworn in as the nation's first black president, but suffered a seizure at a celebratory luncheon afterward.

He also made a surprise and forceful appearance at last summer's Democratic National Convention, where he spoke of his own illness and said health care was the cause of his life. His death occurred precisely one year later, almost to the hour.

Kennedy was away from the Senate for much of this year, leaving Republicans and Democrats to speculate about the impact what his absence meant for the fate of Obama's health care proposals.

Under state law, Kennedy's successor will be chosen by special election. In his last known public act, the senator urged state officials to give Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick the power to name an interim replacement. But that appears unlikely, leaving Democrats in Washington with one less vote for the next several months as they struggle to pass Obama's health care legislation.

His death came less than two weeks after that of his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver on Aug. 11. Kennedy was not present for the funeral, an indication of the precariousness of his own health.

Tragic figure

After Chappaquiddick especially, Kennedy gained a reputation as a heavy drinker and a womanizer, a tragically flawed figure haunted by the fear that he did not quite measure up to his brothers. As his weight ballooned, he was lampooned by comics and cartoonists in the 1980s and '90s as the very embodiment of government waste, bloat and decadence.

But in his later years, after he had remarried, he buckled down and came to be regarded as a statesman on Capitol Hill, seen as one of the most effective, hardworking lawmakers Washington has ever seen.

A barrel-chested figure with a swath of white hair, a booming voice and a thick, widely imitated Boston accent, he coupled fist-pumping floor speeches with his well-honed Irish charm and formidable negotiating skills. He was both a passionate liberal and a clear-eyed pragmatist, unafraid to reach across the aisle to get things done.

Over the decades, he managed to put his imprint on every major piece of social legislation to clear the Congress. In fact, for all his insecurities, he ended up perhaps the most influential liberal voice of his time.

He arrived at his place in the Senate after a string of family tragedies so terrible it sometimes seemed as if the Kennedys — America's foremost political dynasty — were as cursed as they were charmed. He was the only one of the four Kennedy brothers to die of natural causes.

Kennedy's eldest brother, Joseph, was killed in a plane crash in World War II. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down in Los Angeles as he campaigned for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination. John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed in a plane crash at age 38 along with his wife in 1999.

It fell to Ted Kennedy to deliver the eulogies, to comfort his brothers' widows, to mentor fatherless nieces and nephews. It was Ted Kennedy who walked JFK's daughter, Caroline, down the aisle at her wedding.

Eloquence and scandal

Tragedy had a way of bringing out his eloquence.

Kennedy sketched a dream of a better future as he laid to rest his brother Robert in 1968: "My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

After John Jr.'s death, the senator eulogized the young man by saying: "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."

His own legacy was blighted on the night of July 18, 1969, when Kennedy drove his car off a bridge and into a pond on Chappaquiddick Island, on Martha's Vineyard. Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28-year-old worker with RFK's campaign, was found dead in the submerged car's back seat 10 hours later.

Kennedy, then 37, pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a two-month suspended sentence and a year's probation. A judge eventually determined there was "probable cause to believe that Kennedy operated his motor vehicle negligently ... and that such operation appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne."

At the height of the scandal, Kennedy went on national television to explain himself in an extraordinary 13-minute address in which he denied driving drunk and rejected rumors of "immoral conduct" with Ms. Kopechne. He said he was haunted by "irrational" thoughts immediately after the accident, and wondered "whether some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys." He said his failure to report the accident right away was "indefensible."

In 1980, Kennedy took the extraordinary step of challenging a sitting president, Carter, for the party's nomination. Kennedy's left-of-center politics made him an unlikely choice. But Chappaquiddick — and lingering suspicions that the famous Kennedy money and clout had gotten him out of the trouble — damaged his chances, too.

Wide-ranging legislative record

First elected to the Senate in 1962, easily re-elected in 2006, Kennedy served close to 47 years, longer than all but two senators in history: Robert Byrd of West Virginia (more than 50 1/2 years and counting) and the late Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who put in nearly 47 1/2 years.

His legislative achievements included bills to provide health insurance for children of the working poor, the landmark 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, Meals on Wheels for the elderly, abortion clinic access, family leave, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

He was also a key negotiator on legislation creating a Medicare prescription drug benefit for senior citizens and was a driving force for peace in Ireland and a persistent critic of the war in Iraq.

Kennedy did not always prevail. In late 2008, he unsuccessfully lobbied for niece Caroline's appointment to the Senate from New York.

Wildly popular among Democrats, Kennedy routinely won re-election by large margins. He grew comfortable in his role as Republican foil and leader of his party's liberal wing.

President George W. Bush welcomed Kennedy to the Rose Garden on several occasions as he signed bills that the Democrat helped write.

"He's the kind of person who will state his case, sometimes quite eloquently and vociferously, and then on another issue will come along and you can work with him," Bush said shortly before his first term began in 2001.

But Bush was also the target of some of Kennedy's sharpest attacks. Kennedy assailed the Iraq war as Bush's Vietnam, a conflict "made up in Texas" and marketed by the Bush administration for political gain.

Passing the torch

Kennedy and his niece Caroline shook up the Democratic establishment in January 2008 when they endorsed Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton for the nomination for president. The ailing Massachusetts senator electrified delegates when he made a surprise trip to Denver last August to address the Democratic convention and press for Obama's election.

After Obama won in November, Kennedy renewed words once spoken by his brother John, declaring: "The world is changing. The old ways will not do. ... It is time for a new generation of leadership."

Born in 1932, the youngest of Joseph and Rose Kennedy's nine children, Edward Moore Kennedy was part of a family bristling with political ambition, beginning with maternal grandfather John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, a congressman and mayor of Boston.

Round-cheeked Teddy was thrown out of Harvard in 1951 for cheating, after arranging for a classmate to take a freshman Spanish exam for him. He eventually returned, earning his degree in 1956.

In 1955, Kennedy's performance on the football field for Harvard earned him the notice of the Green Bay Packers, who suggested he could have a professional sports career. Kennedy declined the approach, however, saying he planned to to "go into another contact sport, politics."

He went on to the University of Virginia Law School, and in 1962, while his brother John was president, announced plans to run for the Senate seat JFK had vacated in 1960. A family friend had held the seat in the interim because Kennedy was not yet 30, the minimum age for a senator. He ultmately won the general election.

But devastated by his brothers' assassinations and injured in a 1964 plane crash that left him with back pain that would plague him for decades, Kennedy temporarily withdrew from public life in 1968. He re-emerged in 1969 to be elected majority whip of the Senate.

Then came Chappaquiddick

Kennedy still handily won re-election in 1970, but he lost his leadership job. He remained outspoken in his opposition to the Vietnam War and support of social programs but ruled out a 1976 presidential bid.

Kennedy married Virginia Joan Bennett, known as Joan, in 1958. They divorced in 1982. In 1992, he married Washington lawyer Victoria Reggie. His survivors include a daughter, Kara Kennedy Allen; two sons, Edward Jr. and Patrick, a congressman from Rhode Island; and two stepchildren, Caroline and Curran Raclin.

In 1991, Kennedy roused his nephew William Kennedy Smith and his son Patrick from bed to go out for drinks while staying at the family's Palm Beach, Fla., estate. Later that night, a woman Smith met at a bar accused him of raping her at the home.

Smith was acquitted, but the senator's carousing — and testimony about him wandering about the house in his shirttails and no pants — further damaged his reputation.

Rehabilitation

Later on, his second wife appeared to have a calming influence on him, helping him rehabilitate his image.

Kennedy's family life has been marked by illness.

Edward Jr. lost a leg to bone cancer in 1973 at age 12. Kara had a cancerous tumor removed from her lung in 2003. In 1988, Patrick had a noncancerous tumor pressing on his spine removed. He has also struggled with mental problems and addiction and announced in June that he was re-entering rehab.

In 2005, the senator's ex-wife underwent surgery for breast cancer. She has also battled alcoholism.

Kennedy's memoir, "True Compass," is set to be published in the fall.



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