Close friends. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Senator Ted Kennedy passed away last night surrounded by his family.
“An important chapter in our history has come to an end,” Mr. Obama said in a statement early Wednesday, as world leaders began to express their condolences. “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.”
When then-Senator Barack Obama arrived in the United States Senate in 2005, one of the first acts was to call upon Senator Ted Kennedy to seek his wise counsel. And he relied on Senator Kennedy's advice on many occasions during his time in the Senate. President Obama recalled that time today.
“I valued his wise counsel in the Senate, where, regardless of the swirl of events, he always had time for a new colleague,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “I cherished his confidence and momentous support in my race for the presidency.”
And when Senator Ted Kennedy endorsed the young Senator from Illinois, that was a defining moment int he Obama campaign and a defining moment in American History.
The decision by Mr. Kennedy, the patriarch of the Democratic Party, to support Mr. Obama’s candidacy served as a critical moment in the long primary fight with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. For weeks, the Clintons had implored Mr. Kennedy to stay neutral in the race, but on Jan. 28, 2008, he said he grew troubled by the tone of the campaign and issued his endorsement before campaigning across the country on Mr. Obama’s behalf.
His decision to back Mr. Obama created a significant rift with former President Bill Clinton, associates of both men have said, which forever changed their relationship. Mr. Kennedy appeared with Mr. Obama at American University in Washington, asking Democrats “to turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion.”
“He will be a president who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past,” Mr. Kennedy said that day, interrupting his speech more than once to embrace Mr. Obama. “He is a leader who sees the world clearly without being cynical.”
Ted Kennedy will be missed by President Barack Obama on many levels and for many reasons. We can only hope that the Ted Kennedy spirit will live on in the Obama Administration and spill over to Capital Hill.
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Comments
John, you completely ignored Swimmer Ted's role in Chappaquiddick. You also "forget" that Kennedy sought to crush Second Amendment rights of Americans at every opportunity. He was a statist through and through.
Greatest U.S. Senator of all time? Hardly.
When the greatest senator of all time, Ted Kenndy, and his drinking buddy John Tunney came to Aspen a number of years ago they rented and trashed the airport manager's house, then left town without so much as an apology. She probably wouldn't second your opinion of party boy Ted. Typically, Ted lived mostly for Ted and didn't care quite so much for other people's property or lives.
Teddy shared your contempt for the Constitution and the freedoms and rights it guarantees the ordinary Americans. That's why he liked and supported his kindred spirit, Barry O. And that alone would probably be, in your type of reasoning, enough of a reason to think he's the "greatest". If the "greatest" actually killed a close friend in a drunken stupor, which he did. Then I wonder who qualifies as the "worst" United States senator.
Luis - If you read very much of his ramblings(I'm not recommending this,)you'll see see that Johnny has a real bad habit of ignoring a LOT of information that debunks his particularly peculiar view of things - as you point out so well. Ah, well, who cares for reality when it's so much nicer to just make it up as you go?
John says---"We can only hope that the Ted Kennedy spirit will live on in the Obama Administration and spill over to Capital Hill."---You hit the button on this one. It does. It does: the spirit of mindless liberalism, elitism, arrogance, dishonesty, self righteousness, and tyranny.
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