Senator Kennedy: Youngest Brother Enhanced Legacy, and Built His Own

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: THE FAMILY
Youngest Brother Enhanced Legacy, and Built His Own
By Robert G. Kaiser
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 21, 2008; Page A04

For millions of Americans, the announcement that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has brain cancer was at least the fourth chapter of a tragic epic that began on Nov. 22, 1963, with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It continued through the death of his brother Robert in 1968, then of John Jr. in a plane crash in 1999. And yesterday it was the sudden reminder of the mortality of the last surviving son of Joseph P. Kennedy, the patriarch who created this family of strivers and doers.

"I'm having a hard time remembering a day in my 34 years here I've felt this sadly," said Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who has been Kennedy's colleague for most of his 45 years in the Senate. Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), a colleague since 1979, said: "I am so deeply saddened I have lost the words." Friends and colleagues poured forth encouraging and admiring tributes.

There has never been another American family quite like the Kennedys, who have combined accomplishment, glamour, melodrama, tragedy and mythology in ways almost magical, creating an intense public fascination that has lasted half a century....

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"JFK brought charm and wit to government," said Ronald Steel, a historian and author of a book on Robert Kennedy, "and Bobby is remembered for what might have been, but Ted should be thought of as someone who showed how government could be made to serve the people."

His two brothers made the family's reputation, but it was Ted Kennedy, blessed with a decades-longer life, who worked with the nuts and bolts of government and politics to make things happen. "On numerous occasions," added Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), now the presumptive Republican nominee for president, "I have described Ted Kennedy as the last lion in the Senate . . . because he remains the single most effective member . . . if you want to get results."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/20/AR2008052002116.html?hpid=topnews