RIP Senator Kennedy

As I'm writing this, I'm still having trouble finding the right words. When I was born, Edward Kennedy had already been the Senator from Massachussets for twenty years. His brothers John and Robert had long since been laid to rest, and the only Camelot I knew was in the stories of Arthur and his Knights. To me, a kid growing up in Georgia, the Kennedy name was a name in the textbook in History class, something remote and distant, with no connection to me. I had no frame of reference for Ted Kennedy, or his brothers.

Ted Kennedy was one of a dying breed of politicians in America. He came from a different era, a different time. It was a time when you could disagree without being disagreeable, where personal feelings about a subject didn't mean you took someone's opposition to your position personally. It was a time when people could still talk to one another, and come to a compromise.

If you want to take measure of Kennedy's work as a politician, you could look at his fourteen thousand roll call votes, or his accomplishments like the Voting Rights Act. I choose to look at all those people, Democrats and Republicans alike, who came to pay their respects at his funeral. I choose to look at long time rivals who counted themselves amongst Kennedy's friends, despite their political differences. I choose to look at the crowds of people who stood in front of the Capitol for three hours, patiently waiting for a colleague, mentor, friend to make his final stop there.

There are no lions in the Senat now, only sheep and chickens, while pigs roll in the muck. Farewell, Senator. You will be missed.