And so the last of the Kennedy brothers is laid to rest. The final chapter in a long saga that played itself out over the course of the middle and late 20th century has reached its inevitable denouement. Were Shakespeare alive today, we would likely have a play about each of them, and of their father as well. For the story of the Kennedy family is the stuff from which legends are born.
And in Ted, flawed, imperfect, and yet for all his flaws and imperfections still closer to perfection than most of his staunchest critics, we find a Kennedy brother so unlike the others; the only one to take naturally to politics, the only one to truly move the fence posts of history onto new territory, the only one to grow old before our eyes, to comb gray hair, to have grandchildren, to die a natural death, to say all his goodbyes. A man who, for all his faults, never lost sight of his dream of a better America, one in which everyone, from all backgrounds, has the same opportunities that he had by virtue of being lucky enough to have been born into a wealthy family. Ted believed that luck should have nothing to do with it. He believed that everyone should have the chance to reach for their dreams.
Not such a bad thing, really.
Not a one of his critics, so quick to point out his personal faults, have made a fraction of the contribution to the work of creating a better America as Ted has. Not a one of them has bothered to roll up their sleeves and immerse themselves in the complications of bringing about genuine change in America. Too hard. Too much work. So much easier to criticize without offering anything constructive of their own.
Ted was a throwback, really, to a time when America’s leaders practiced a kind of politics that no longer exists in this country, indeed, which cannot exist anymore in this age of 24-hour “news” that in reality is nothing more than 24-hour opinion. Ted’s death is more than just the end of the Kennedy dynasty; it’s the end of politics that rises above self-interest. It’s hard to imagine anyone in the House or the Senate today fighting for the cause of the less fortunate with anything like the kind of zeal that Ted Kennedy had. Ted actually believed the words of his brother Jack when he said, “To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required—not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich”.
Who in politics today can say that they believe that and keep a straight face?
Doing something not because we seek their votes? How charmingly naive this seems in today’s world.
Of course, the Kennedys were nothing of not charming.
So like the Adams, and the Roosevelts, the Tafts, the Lincolns, the Lodges, and all of the other towering American political families who produced greatness in one generation only to have it gradually fizzle out in successive ones, the trajectory of the Kennedy family is now clearly in decline. Camelot is closed, its windows boarded up, its lawns in weeds, its gardens untended, its once resplendent grandeur now lost to the ages.
While some of Joe Kennedy’s grandchildren have entered politics, the fires of passion that ignited an entire generation of Americans at the dawn of The New Frontier, and has sustained them for nearly half a century, has been reduced to embers. Of course, even Ted has had difficulty keeping the flame alive in recent years, in the cold, damp conditions of today’s political climate.
But we saw it flare-up last year in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, if only for a moment. And even though as President, Obama has now gotten bogged down in the muck and mire of the political realities of Washington, there are still more people who remember the warmth of that flame, and who want to make America better for all of its citizens.
And America will be a better place. For everyone.
Thanks in no small measure to the tireless work of Ted Kennedy.
