This week saw the death from a brain tumor of a man both loved and hated, reviled and idolized, an integral part of what is, perhaps, the only true American family dynasty, and yet, very much a human being. For all that has been said about him over the years, the part of Edward Kennedy that has always struck me was his humanity.
I don't know what he was like up close and personal, of course. I suspect, like most famous politicians, he thought well of himself. Humility is not the first thing that comes to mind, when looking for adjectives with which to describe the man called the "Lion of the Senate." But that sort of seems to go with the territory, no matter what your political persuasion may be.
His family, who still call him Teddy, clearly saw the softer, gentler side of the private man. His legion of friends cannot be all for show - I have to think he must have been, for the most part, a fairly decent person, as politicians go, in his day to day conduct and relationships.
Why does Ted Kennedy even matter, to someone like me, one of the little people of the world? I think he matters because, although he lived large, his world view was, more than most people born to wealth and power and prestige and fame, sort of like mine. Perception, perhaps, but life is all about perceptions, and I think that perception is the reason so many people voted for him for so many years, and now mourn his passing. His ability to connect was rooted in his humanity, and I think that will be his longest legacy.
Two things stand out for me to make Ted Kennedy more human than most, however, with the flaws and the virtues showing in almost equal measure.
The greatest flaw, of course, came in the death of a young woman at his hands. Regardless of the facts in the situation, which no one but Ted will ever really know on this earth, he did not do the right thing that night. The true measure of a person is in how they handle adversity, and Ted Kennedy failed that test, when, as a young man, he ran away from an accident of his making, leaving a young woman to certain death.
His apology to the nation, and his constituents, was inadequate, more of a dissembling than an explanation of what happened, of how he could have done the things he did that night. Although the events of that night in Chappaquiddick hung over his head, and his career, for the remainder of his life, I believe he salvaged a political career that would not have survived had he been anyone else in the nation, based on sympathy for a family that had suffered and lost much, and a name that meant everything in the 1960's in Massachusetts. It isn't right, and her family did not receive justice in this case, because they never got the answers they deserved.
But life isn't fair, and I believe in grace and redemption. Thus, I think the other measure of character is how you conduct yourself ever after.
Whether I agreed with him or not on a particular issue, he passed that test, in my mind. More than almost any other politician I can think of, he championed, through all the years in his political career, the needs of the common man, with whom he seemed to feel aligned, regardless of his family name and wealth. While there was some political self-service in that, I believe that, for his faults, Ted Kennedy really did believe in the rights of the regular guy, and that his self-identification was based on what he felt in his heart.
Although I have frequently disagreed with this most liberal of senators, I am less cynical about his motives than I might be, because he carried it through his entire life's work, from the beginning to the end. His assault against the status of health care in this nation, for example, was not the beginning of his quest - he was no Johnny come lately to that battle. It was the culmination of his lifetime of work, a cause that he had fought for over many years, and several presidencies.
It is particularly ironic that he chose health care as the issue of his heart, given that virtually his entire adult life was spent utilizing the Cadillac of health care systems, set up by the US Congress for their own members. The one part of the health care reform movement that really appeals to me is that everyone, including the president and the Congress, has to live under the same system they devise for the rest of us.
I don't know if Kennedy favored that idea, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out he, of all the people in Washington, did. [Of course, I realize it is not the big conundrum for him that it would be for the rest of us, since he has enough money to buy any health care he wants. But I don't think that takes anything away from the fact that he was trying to meet the needs of those less fortunate than himself, even if I would choose to quibble about the details of how he was getting there.]
It is my thought, in fact, that health care was one of the reasons he ultimately chose to publicly support Barack Obama for president over the more logical, and obvious, selection of Hillary Clinton, who up to that point, had a lock on the nomination. I think, in his opinion, Hillary was not going to get any health care reform passed, because the battle would degenerate into the past battle, which she resoundingly lost. I believe that Kennedy, the man with a reputation for reaching across the aisle and making pragmatic compromise, felt his only chance of getting real reform passed was to have in office someone new, someone different, someone who didn't have a past with regard to his pet issue, and thus, who would not polarize the entire Congress into their usual entrenched positions.
I have been musing the last couple of days about his long term legacy, and how history will remember this most complicated of Senators. His niece, Caroline, spoke of carrying on his life's passions to honor his memory. His grandson has claimed that torch of service for himself someday in the future. People in Congress have floated the idea of naming the eventual reform bill after him, in recognition of his contributions to the debate that is currently raging (and enraging, but I digress, as usual.)
His funeral, attended by some of the most powerful people on earth, and also watched by thousands of people whom no one has ever heard of, exposes the real humanity of the man being memorialized. We understand why the wealthy, the well connected, the powerful and famous, would want to see and be seen at the funeral of a Kennedy, whether they knew him or not. But what makes the common people, people like me, shed a tear over the scion of a dynasty that they never met?
Edward Kennedy is a fascinating mix of the good and the bad, the high and the low, the right and the wrong, that is a part of each of us. I think that is our fascination with him, as much as his family name and his power and wealth. For once, the rich and famous aren't unreachable; they have been exposed for what they really are - people just like us.
For those who loved him, I wish them peace and comfort in their grief. It surely must be a heavy load right now, his sister having died just a couple weeks before him. For me, I say farewell to a flawed man with mostly good intentions - an example both of how to live well, and how to live badly, but ultimately, to keep trying the best you can to the very end.
