Barack Obama yesterday paid a poignant public farewell to Senator Edward Kennedy, the veteran Democratic powerbroker, whom he described as “the heir to a weighty legacy . . . a champion to those who had none”. After a sombre day of rare political unity in Washington, Kennedy was last night being buried in Arlington national cemetery, close to brothers John and Robert, after a moving funeral service in Boston at which the president led America’s mourning for the scion of one of its greatest political families.
His voice breaking as he paid tribute to “the baby of the family who became its patriarch”, Obama hailed Kennedy as “a force of nature” from an age “when adversaries still saw each other as patriots”.
He, three former presidents and politicians of all hues had gathered in Boston under dark clouds to mark the passing of a flawed but potent deal-maker whose life was marred by tragedy and self-inflicted folly, but who somehow survived to become a senatorial legend.
The president referred only obliquely to Kennedy’s troubled past when he spoke of a “string of events that would have broken a lesser man”.
Obama added that it would have been easy for Kennedy “to surrender to self-pity and regret, and retreat from private life. That was not Ted Kennedy”.
Beneath the vaulting arches of the Catholic Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Kennedy was also remembered as a Massachusetts hero, a loving father and grandfather and, in the minds of many of his colleagues, a final and irreplacea-ble link to the Camelot era of Kennedy greatness, when JFK was president.
Obama referred repeatedly to the burdens Kennedy had faced after the assassinations of his older brothers. It was because the senator had experienced so much suffering of his own that he was “more alive to the plight of others”, the president said.
“He was given the gift of time that his brothers were not . . . he became the greatest legislator of our time.”
Obama was joined by three former presidents — George W Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter — and a host of current and past politicians from both sides of the political aisle. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California governor who is related to the Kennedys by marriage, led a strong contingent of Republican notables who included John McCain, the party’s former presidential candidate. Also in the church was Jack Nicholson, the actor.
In recognition of Kennedy’s often controversial interest in Irish affairs, Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, and Martin McGuinness, the deputy first minister of the Northern Ireland assembly, attended. Britain was represented by Sarah Brown, the prime minister’s wife, and Shaun Woodward, the Northern Ireland secretary.
For Obama, the occasion provided an opportunity to display his much-vaunted rhetorical skills, and most commentators judged his address to have been perfectly pitched.
It had been Kennedy’s early endorsement in last year’s presidential campaign that provided Obama with a crucial boost as he fought off Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. Yet almost as if to prove that no hard feelings remain, the president sat next to Hillary, now his secretary of state, in the front row of mourners.
Obama avoided overtly partisan references and did not dwell on the healthcare issue that he and Kennedy championed, yet which has since became bitterly divisive. Instead the president talked simply and eloquently about “learning from our mistakes and growing from our failures”.
He also joked that when he once asked Kennedy how he had pulled off a voting majority for a difficult piece of legislation, the senator had “just patted me on the back and said, ‘luck of the Irish’.” The president concluded: “The greatest expectations were placed upon Ted Kennedy’s shoulders because of who he was, but he surpassed them all because of who he became. We do not weep for him today because of the prestige attached to his name or his office. We weep because we loved this kind and tender hero who persevered through pain and tragedy.”
Diagnosed with brain cancer 15 months ago, Kennedy had helped plan his own funeral before his death last Tuesday. He chose the Boston basilica because it was where he had often gone to pray after his daughter, Kara, was diagnosed with lung cancer aged 42 six years ago. She recovered and was yesterday among family members who gave readings.
Despite the forbidding weather , thousands of Kennedy’s former constituents turned out to watch a Cadillac hearse drive his flag-draped coffin to the basilica from the John F Kennedy presidential library. An honour guard of six military pallbearers carried the coffin into the church as Kennedy’s widow, Victoria, stood beneath a black umbrella, looking pale and tired.
Inside the church the flag was removed and replaced with a simple white shroud as the Rev Donald Mohan paid tribute to Kennedy’s “uniquely public life”. The two-hour service also featured performances by Yo-Yo Ma, the cellist, and Placido Domingo, the tenor.
There was laughter too, as Kennedy’s son, Ted Jr, recalled his father as a fearless adventurer whose energetic ideas for family holidays “left us injured and exhausted”. He also remembered the senator saying: “I don’t mind not being president. I just mind that someone else is.”
In a poignant address about his father's tenderness to him as a child when he had a leg amputated because of cancer, Ted Jr told the congregation: "He taught us that even our most profound losses are survivable."
Recounting how his father helped him climb an icy hill with his new prosthetic leg, he said: "He taught me that nothing is impossible."
In an oblique reference to the scandals that dogged his father, Ted added: “At times it hasn’t been easy to live with this name, but I’ve never been more proud of it than I am today.”
After the mass, Kennedy's flag-draped coffin was flown to Washington and the youngest of the Kennedy brothers was finally reunited with his slain brothers laid to rest in Arlington Natonal Cemetary as a lone bugle player brought the curtain down on a political dynasty .
Thousands of people again lined the routes taken by the funeral procession. Outside the US Capitol the crowds broke into loud applause as the funeral procession halted briefly for the senator's final visit to the imposing white national assembly.
The late senator was buried on a hilltop overlooking the capital, 100 feet from the grave of his brother, Robert Kennedy, assassinated in 1968, and close to the eternal flame marking the last resting place of president John F. Kennedy, shot dead in 1963.
As the sun set over his graveside, the senator's voice could be heard in the gathering dusk from beyond the grave when his recent letter to Pope Benedict XVI was read out.
"The disease is taking its toll on me," admitted Kennedy frankly in the July letter, saying he was "preparing for the next passage of life."
The Vatican said in its reply the pope "was saddened to know of your illness and asked me to assure you of his concern and his spiritual closeness."
Benedict asked that Kennedy "may be sustained in faith and hope and granted the precious grace of joyful surrender to the will of God."
A three-shot volley rang out, followed by the haunting sounds of the bugle player, as darkness fell leaving the eternal flame flickering in the night.
Thousands of people again lined the routes Saturday, mirroring scenes seen over the past three days in his home of Hyannis Port and then in Boston in an enormous outpouring of grief at Kennedy's death.
Outside the US Capitol the crowds broke into loud applause as the funeral procession halted briefly for the senator's final visit to the imposing white national assembly.
In unprecedented scenes, thousands of other ordinary by-passers had gathered solemnly on the lawns and roadsides nearby to pay their respects.
Outside the Senate which shook for almost five decades with the sound of Kennedy's voice, his widow, Vicki, and other family members stepped out of their cars to greet hundreds of Congress staffers and lawmakers.
Although many Americans disliked his leftist politics, the senator's passing has been a national event, signaling the end of a half-century era in which his legendary family was a highly influential force in the Democratic Party.
In uncanny echoes of JFK's funeral more than four decades ago, thousands of people lined the route from Washington's Lincoln Memorial over the Arlington Memorial Bridge Saturday, clapping as they paid their last respects.
And in a poignant moment, as the sun set over his graveside, the senator's voice could be heard in the gathering dusk from beyond the grave when his recent letter to Pope Benedict XVI was read out.
"The disease is taking its toll on me," admitted Kennedy frankly in the July letter, saying he was "preparing for the next passage of life."
The Vatican said in its reply the pope "was saddened to know of your illness and asked me to assure you of his concern and his spiritual closeness."
Benedict asked that Kennedy "may be sustained in faith and hope and granted the precious grace of joyful surrender to the will of God."
A three-shot volley rang out, followed by the haunting sounds of the bugle player, as darkness fell leaving the eternal flame flickering in the night.
Source:The times
search the web
Custom Search
