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 Ted Kennedy’s HumanityPosted on Aug 26, 2009
By E.J. Dionne Ted Kennedy was treasured by liberals, loved by many of his conservative colleagues, revered by African-Americans and Latinos, respected by hard-bitten political bosses, admired by students of the legislative process, and cherished by those who constituted the finest cadre of staff members ever assembled on Capitol Hill. The Kennedy paradox is that he managed to be esteemed by almost everyone without ever becoming all things to all people. He stood for large purposes, unequivocally and unapologetically, and never ducked tough choices. Yet he made it his business to get work done with anyone who would toil along with him. He was a friend, colleague and human being before he was an ideologue or partisan, even though he was a joyful liberal and an implacable Democrat. He suffered profoundly, made large mistakes and was, to say the least, imperfect. But the suffering and the failures fed a humane humility that led him to reach out to others who fell, to empathize with those burdened by pain, to understand human folly, and to appreciate the quest for redemption. That made him a rarity in politics. Never pretending that he knew everything, he had a magnetic draw for talented people who stayed with him for years. He trusted them and gave them room to shine. Their guidance and his own intelligence and feverish work made him one of the greatest senators in history. There was another Kennedy paradox: Precisely because he knew so clearly what he wanted and where he wished the country to move, he could strike deals with Republicans far outside his philosophical comfort zone. Advertisement Kennedy’s willingness to cross party lines only enhanced his credibility when he needed to stand alone as a progressive prophet. In early 2003, while so many in his party cowered in fear, Kennedy stood against the impending invasion of Iraq, warning that it would “undermine” the war against terrorism and “feed a rising tide of anti-Americanism overseas.” And for his entire career, in season and out, Kennedy had a righteous obsession with the profound injustices and shameful inefficiencies of an American health care system that bankrupts the sick and inflicts needless agony on those who cannot cross a doctor’s threshold. It would be an unforgivable tragedy if Kennedy’s death were to weaken rather than strengthen the forces battling for health care reform, which Kennedy called “the cause of my life.” Yet Kennedy’s liberalism was experimental, not rigid. Principles didn’t change, but tactics and formulations were always subject to review. He gave annual speeches that amounted to a report on the state of American liberalism. He always sought to give heart to its partisans in dark times—“Let’s be who we are and not pretend to be something else,” Kennedy said in early 1995, shortly after his party’s devastating midterm defeat—but he did not shrink from pointing to liberal shortcomings. In that 1995 speech, he insisted that “outcomes,” not intentions, should determine whether government programs live or die. In 2005, he criticized liberals for failing to harness their creed to the country’s core values. Many who didn’t know Kennedy will wonder about the sources of the cross-partisan affection that will flow liberally in the coming days. It goes back to his humane identification with those in pain. Literally thousands of people have stories, and I offer my own. In 1995, Kennedy was at our church on a Sunday when a call for prayers came forth for a hospitalized member of our family. Kennedy eventually learned that it was my 3-year-old son James who was stricken with a rare condition. I returned home late that night after spending the day at the hospital. Waiting for me was a message from Ted Kennedy. A quiet voice described his own son’s youthful illness and expressed a total understanding of the fear and pain I was experiencing. My son recovered, thank God, and I will never forget what Kennedy did. His compassion was real, not contrived, and it extended to individual human beings and not just to the masses in the crowds who cheered him, and will keep cheering for a long time. Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. Add Your Comment
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By Purple Girl, August 30 at 4:27 pm #
“Fight the good fight with all thy might
Christ is thy strength And Christ is thy Right
Lay Hold of Life and It shall be
Thy Joy and Crown eternally”
Boyd (& Monsell) 1863
You did our ancestory Proud,Teddy!
Report thisBy StuartH, August 29 at 11:33 am #
Funerals are a time of remembrances and reflection on the greater realities of
being human. There is also renewal.
The best among us not only know, but act on the wisdom that we are all poor,
if we look at our humanity, it’s imperfections and vulnerability. In the end the
flesh fails and all vanity is lost.
What remains in this life is not material, but what lives on in a community
sense and the answer to the ultimate question: What have we done?
The anticipation of the time when we at last will face this question should
motivate us. The greatest tragedy is to have no good answer.
What brings us to a sense of humanity is how humble this great question
Report thismakes us all.
By Amon Drool, August 29 at 12:07 am #
when teddy k died, i was hoping folks at TD would keep it toned down. but no such luck. i was no big fan of his…he just seemed like another flawed human being who was attempting to redeem himself as well as he could as his life went on. but overly positive posts from scheer and the washpo lib crowd have brought on overly negative (and sometimes inhumane) comments from some of the TD regs. it’s all been a very sad episode at TD and just leaves me shaking my head.
Report thisBy cann4ing, August 28 at 9:08 pm #
By Folktruther
The only time I’ve ever rooted for brain cancer.
____________________
You are truly sick, my friend.
Report thisBy StuartH, August 28 at 11:50 am #
There is something about pseudonymous commentary that allows us to be the kid
Report thisin church who stands up to fart in the face of the old lady behind us, and to
delight in the outrage this causes, when in fact we would never be so
discourteous in real life. Some part of us want to explore freedom on these
terms.
By artie, August 28 at 11:43 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Read the wikipedia article on Rosemary Kennedy. It will give you a more complete understanding of the Kennedy family.
Report thisBy camnai, August 28 at 6:39 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Ted Kennedy supported a lot of things I think are a good idea, but I wonder how
paeans like the one above must sound to Mary Jo Kopechne’s family.
For someone of the third-base stratosphere into which he was born, perhaps, he
qualifies as a humanist, but the one time he came up against a real human who
needed his help, he tucked his tail firmly between his legs, and he swam.
I think Mr Dionne, and many others, are simply star-struck. And the Kennedys
Report thisand their class quietly despise you for it.
By Folktruther, August 27 at 9:04 pm #
Ted Kennedy was so morally corrupt that he makes me nausous. One of the last acts of his life, when he knew he ws dying, was helping to round up some Dem Senators to try to block the dying prisoner in Scotland, grossly framed on the Lockerbie homocide.
the man wanted to die at home, in Lybia, and Kennedy tried to prevent it.
The only time I’ve ever rooted for brain cancer.
Report thisBy StuartH, August 27 at 2:36 pm #
Here are a few photos that remind us that Ted Kennedy was effective because he
really put in the hours and the effort to be with people and support them. Not a
lot of what he did in that vein made the front pages.
These photos show Kennedy at fundraising events for the Texas Observer, an
always-struggling progressive news magazine. He really didn’t have to go help
out. This could easily have been excused as too small a deal to bother with and
not worth his precious time. He did a lot of this. That is one reason why people
who genuinely have dedicated themselves to fighting for progress all over
America owe Kennedy a debt of gratitude and eternal thanks for having come this
way.
http://www.documentaryphotographs.com
Report thisBy wagonjak, August 27 at 2:32 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Good article, but horrifying graphic…makes Ted look like his face is rotting and
Report thisfalling off…surely you can do better here then that…
By eileen fleming, August 27 at 9:24 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I was just a kid in 1969, when Teddy drove into Chappaquiddick, but I remember images of him and how grief stricken he looked.
I felt as bad for him as I did for Mary Jo Kopechne and her family and friends, for being a kid, I knew how easy it was to do something stupid and selfish.
But what Senator Ted Kennedy’s passing did for me, was first to remind me of what his brother said about HOPE:
“Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. ” — Robert F. Kennedy
My hope is that Senator Kennedy’s passing will reignite a spirit of HOPE that comprehends that “HOPE has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it.”-St. Augustine
And then I recalled a song Jimi Hendrix did at Woodstock that very same year:
“Well, I stand up next to a mountain, and I chop it down with the edge of my hand. Well, I pick up all the pieces and make an island; might even raise a little sand… If I don’t meet you no more in this world then I’ll meet you on the next one.”
And then I recalled something stupid I did that also illuminated to me that no matter how hard I try to be nonviolent in all ways-I am far from saint hood and death is always closer than we think; so on August 26, 2009, I wrote: “Teddy, Bobby, Jimi, saints and sinners…”
Report thishttp://www.wearewideawake.org
By Outraged, August 27 at 4:01 am #
Re: jmr
In response to your post.
When you call others “vulgar”, as a blanket statement, you ignore those who are not. I have not seen this “one in a hundred” wealthy people seeking to enfranchise the disenfranchised, as you claim. While I can engage your overriding message, the facts speak for themselves.
In other words, find me the ninety-nine out of a hundred wealthy people who undertake your assertion of “there are hundreds of wealthy people who feel the obligation to share their good fortune.” In this you claim it as a “sense of duty”, but this has not been borne out in historically. Nominally so, possibly… but not REALISTICALLY so.
I don’t claim that ALL rich people have it in for ALL poor people… however, to state blatantly that the flip-side is the case is to be disingenuous.
Of course, we could qualifiably argue at which point one is considered “wealthy”. What do you mean by that? Additionally, “a sense of duty” can mean many things to many people. Will someone’s “sense of duty” be internalized by their benefactors as a “thanks for nothing” reality or by their “givers” as conscience relieving alm?
If I have no job, no home and no livelihood will your “compassion” of $500.00 lift me up? will it help? will it feed me? will it put a roof over my head? will this “gift” need to be repaid? Is it actually and realistically from YOUR hard earned net or was it only an underhanded scam pilfered from other taxpayers? These are the real questions?
I also understand that you are attempting to endorse Sen. Kennedy and his legacy. However, you do him and many others a disservice by presenting it in such a fashion. I sense that Sen. Kennedy heartfeltly attempted to understand what it meant to “not have”, not in the realistic way as one who has experienced it, but in the conceptual way, as one who whole-heartedly TRIES to understand and then is MOVED to act upon it.
He worked to establish policy in favor of those who had no voice. A very difficult task if one has never experienced it, but understood that this poverty within the midst of incredible wealth inexcusable. It is this, that makes Sen. Kennedy special, noteworthy and iconic.
Report thisBy jmr, August 26 at 11:48 pm #
Noblesse oblige is often used disparagingly. but properly used it means the obligation of the privileged. I often hear the vulgar snidely demean wealthy people of conscience as having a guilt complex. It has nothing to do with guilt and everthing to do with a sense of duty. The motto of the Prince of Wales is Ich Dien, I serve.
For every greedy bastard there are hundreds of wealthy people who feel the obligation to share their good fortune. Republicans of this stripe resent that the government should compel them to share their wealth when they would do it anyway. The Kennedys understand that private charity, as much as they have given, isn’t enough and that society-at-large is obliged to provide for its own. Libertarians and their GOP cousins believe that “taking from me” on behalf of the commonweal is wrong. They are the creeps whom progressives like the Kennedys fight.
We live in society. A humane society cares for others, a barbaric society does not. It’s that simple.
Report thisBy anaman51, August 26 at 2:56 pm #
I say goodbye to a friend, a man I trusted to do the right thing. He was the voice of all those of us who have no voice, the poor, the weak, the underpriviledged, and the elderly. I will miss him.
Report this