Senator Kennedy

In a new book ("Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography," William Morrow, 692 pages, $27.50), Adam Clymer says Kennedy is the most outstanding senator of the century. He slightly qualifies that assessment with this: "Robert F. Wagner is probably Kennedy's most credible rival [as a legislator]." And he says that while Hubert Humphrey and Robert A. Taft were national political leaders in Kennedy's class, they weren't senators for as long. Clymer also thinks Arthur Vandenberg, Everett Dirksen and J. William Fulbright are significant also-rans for "moments" of greatness.

NEW YORK -- They gathered in an oasis of quiet in the midst of the world's most know-it-all city, where streets were blocked and intruders were banned yesterday so that family and friends -- no matter how famous or familiar -- could commemorate in private the very public life, and death, of John F. Kennedy Jr."He had a legacy, and he learned to treasure it. He was part of a legend, and he learned to live with it," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said in a eulogy before about 315 mourners ranging from President Clinton to Muhammad Ali. "He had amazing grace."

HAPPY Chappaquiddick Day! This is the silver anniversary of the most infamous sex-crime-politics scandal in American history.I assume all of you know what happened 25 years ago today. But maybe not. After all, there are millions of newspaper readers who weren't even born yet that midnight when Sen. Ted Kennedy drove off the Dyke Bridge and into a pond on Chappaquiddick Island with a young woman not his wife, Mary Jo Kopechne, and left her to drown, then tried to cover it all up.He got off with a short suspended sentence for leaving the scene of an accident -- but it cost him the presidency, or at the very least the Democratic nomination for the presidency.

Boston. -- Massachusetts may be the Jurassic Park of American politics, where the dinosaur of liberalism lumbers on, oblivious to the fact that its era has long since passed. But the Tyrannosaurus Rex is endangered.For some while, whispers have been heard: This time, Ted Kennedy may actually have to break a sweat to get re-elected. Then last Sunday a poll by a respected Cambridge firm showed Senator Kennedy in a statistical dead heat with his likely Republican opponent, Mitt Romney.Mr. Romney, a 47-year-old venture capitalist, is approximately what Republicans would have asked central casting to send to them as the ideal contrast with Mr. Kennedy.

At 3:30 p.m. last Friday afternoon, after days of trying to decide among the last three candidates on his list for the Supreme Court, President Clinton suddenly added a new name to the list -- Paul Sarbanes. The Maryland senator would no doubt be a good justice. Editorialists here have pointed out his qualifications more than once. Senate and House service, excellent legal education, etc.But the way to choose a justice is not as an afterthought, though that almost seems what President Clinton did last year, adding a finalist at the last moments of the process and then picking her.This year the process was even less commendable.

There he is, Mr. Justice Breyer. Let's hear it for him. And how about a hand for the First Runner-Up, Richard Arnold? And don't forget Mr. Congeniality, Bruce Babbitt!President Clinton says that since he once taught constitutional law, he is well prepared to select a Supreme Court justice. But he has now twice turned the process into something like a Miss America pageant, with the contestants being looked over and graded in various categories in public for days on end, after he and his advisers had had many weeks to work on it. All the delays, leaks, rescheduled announcements and hand-wringing excuses denigrate the process and demean the president and those under consideration.

NEW YORK -- A river of solemn mourners -- family members, friends and close associates of a lifetime touched by tragedy and triumph -- paid their respects to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis yesterday, flowing in and out of her apartment for an informal wake on the eve of her funeral and burial today.With dark suits and grim faces, the mourners were ushered into a simply furnished room at her Fifth Avenue apartment, where Mrs. Onassis lay in a closed coffin draped with an antique cloth.They were greeted by her children, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and John F. Kennedy Jr.; other relatives; and by Mrs. Onassis' companion, Maurice Tempelsman.

Ted Kennedy Jr. weds psychiatry professorEdward M. Kennedy Jr., son of U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., was married yesterday to Katherine Anne Gershman, an assistant professor in psychiatry at Yale University.The wedding in St. Andrews Roman Catholic Church on Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island, was attended by some 300 guests. The groom's cousin, John F. Kennedy Jr., and his fiancee, actress Daryl Hannah, were chased across the front lawn and into the church by dozens of reporters.

I was all set to do a column on Joe McGinniss' new biography of Ted Kennedy, the one in which McGinniss makes up what people are thinking and quotes people he never talked to, when the phone rang."

"WHERE'S THE rest of him?" I asked in a review (American Spectator, October) of "The Last Brother," Joe McGinniss' controversial biography of Sen. Edward Kennedy.Clever me. That's the title of Ronald Reagan's autobiography.The point was that in addition to the well-publicized charges of plagiarism and falsification, McGinniss' book deserved condemnation because though it claimed to be about "the most significant aspects of Teddy Kennedy's life," it only dealt with his life through 1969.It is in the 24 years since 1969 that this Kennedy's life has become truly significant.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy wrote a letter to the pope. The urgency of the message was evident in the preeminence of the messenger: President Barack Obama himself had handed the letter to Pope Benedict XVI at the end of the historic first meeting between the two leaders in the Vatican last month. The papal spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, was peppered with questions by reporters from around the world. What did the letter say? Had the pope read the letter yet? Had President Obama asked the pope to pray for Senator Kennedy?

An unlikely, flawed heir to America's political royal family who experienced tragedy, disgrace and triumph in a life of epic proportions, Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy will be remembered as not only one of the most influential political figures of the era but for a life that was quite simply larger than life. For many Americans, he will be recalled fondly as the last of a generation of Kennedys who brought glamour, celebrity and a healthy dose of charisma to public life. But it was only after the untimely deaths of his older brothers that he stepped to the fore - and soon brought scandal to the family name with the drowning death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick Island.

Caroline Kennedy renews bid for Senate ALBANY, N.Y. : After wavering briefly, Caroline Kennedy renewed her determination yesterday to win appointment to the U.S. Senate seat once held by her uncle, Robert F. Kennedy, a person close to the decision said. After her uncle, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, suffered a seizure on Inauguration Day, Caroline Kennedy had misgivings about taking on the new job, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak for Kennedy.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was awake and "feeling well" last night after suffering a seizure during a post-inaugural luncheon in honor of President Barack Obama, said a physician who treated him. Kennedy, who has been undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments since having surgery for brain cancer last June, was rushed from the Capitol by ambulance after he began shaking and convulsing at the luncheon, according to lawmakers and Senate staff...

Edward Kennedy, the U.S. Senate's second-longest-serving member and one of the most powerful political figures of the past half-century, has been diagnosed with a type of brain cancer that usually proves fatal. The diagnosis of malignant glioma was announced yesterday by his doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital, where the 76-year-old patriarch of the Kennedy family was taken by helicopter Saturday after suffering a seizure at his home on Cape Cod. The Massachusetts Democrat will be treated with chemotherapy and radiation, his doctors said, standard treatment that normally slows or stops the growth of the brain tumor but seldom cures it. The senator will remain at the hospital "for the next couple days according to routine protocol," his doctors said in a prepared statement.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski calls Sen. Edward M. Kennedy "one of the Galahads." When the Maryland Democrat arrived in the Senate two decades ago, Kennedy was ready to show her the ways of the upper chamber, to help her win a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee, to team up with her on several measures to improve women's health. Yesterday, Mikulski called news of his cancer diagnosis "wrenching -- like a punch in the heart." "Senator Kennedy is one of my oldest friends in Congress," Mikulski, who wiped tears from her eyes yesterday as she entered the Senate chamber to vote, said through a spokeswoman.

WASHINGTON - I can't imagine what Sen. Edward M. Kennedy must feel. I mean, I know it's traumatic to see your brother shot in the head and killed. But what must it add to your pain to see that tragedy become a video game? It happened last week. The game, available online, is called JFK Reloaded, and it was released to coincide with the 41st anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Download the game at a cost of $9.99 and you find yourself on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas.

WHO AMONG US did not feel a little shiver of mean delight last week at the news that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy had not once but five times been told he could not board a commercial plane? The image of a genuine Washington pooh-bah falling afoul of the government's inane security system was one to savor. But now that we've had the advantage of a period of sober reflection, we're inclined to ponder: Is this idiotic, or what? The government keeps lists of suspected terrorists who aren't allowed to fly, and leaves it up to the airlines to enforce it. It's not at all clear how easy it is to get on one of these lists, but it's all too obvious that it's virtually impossible to get off one. Apparently the people who run US Airways had a no-fly list that included a certain "Kennedy," so that meant that the senior senator from Massachusetts -- incidentally the most famous member of the world's greatest deliberative body -- was kept off the plane by the airline's by-the-book gate agents until superiors were called upon to waive him aboard.

WASHINGTON - Edward M. Kennedy's voice, more monster-truck rally announcer than Boston Brahmin senator, booms through a packed hotel ballroom here as he warms up a crowd of donors for John Kerry. "There's a wave that's coming across this country," roars Kennedy. "You give John Kerry the opportunity to get his message across to the American people, he'll give America back the White House." It is a pitch Kennedy delivered loudly and often as a prominent figure in Kerry's campaign for the Democratic nomination.

DEMOCRATIC Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts reaches a milestone today that only four other senators in the institution's 213-plus years have passed: 40 years of service. And he's probably thinking, "You ain't seen nothing yet." The four were the late Sens. Carl Hayden, an Arizona Democrat(1927-1969) and John Stennis, a Mississippi Democrat (1947-1989), Republican Strom Thurmond of South Carolina (1954-2002 or 2003, depending on whether he resigns before his term officially ends in January, to give his replacement extra seniority)