[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Sharing the Passion

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Sharing the Passion

July 26, 2004
 By BOB HERBERT 



 

He was born on Feb. 22, 1932, the 200th anniversary of the
birth of George Washington. He received his first communion
not from his local parish priest but from Pope Pius XII.
His mother, who lived to be 104, loved to pack picnic
lunches and take her kids on visits to the historic sights
of Boston. An older brother became the 35th president of
the United States. 

When I dropped by the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy
in Washington last week he was working on the speech he
will deliver to the Democratic National Convention in
Boston tomorrow night. He was in a great mood, excited that
for the first time in history the convention would be held
in the city that has meant so much to him and his family. 

"Eight of my grandparents came to the immigration hall in
East Boston," he said. "All of them walked up what is
called the Golden Steps, then dispersed out into the city."


No other person has been as close to so much of the action
that has shaped this country over the past half-century as
Ted Kennedy. Presidents come and go, some tacking left,
others right. But Mr. Kennedy has been in the Senate since
1963 and despite tragedy and scandal has remained a
stubborn, barnacle-encrusted anchor to the gleaming but
always vulnerable democratic ideals that are so essential
to the greatness of America. 

He has fought gallantly and most of the time successfully
on behalf of civil rights, voting rights, women's rights,
patients' rights, the rights of the disabled, and the
rights and dignity of lesbians and gays. 

When the Democratic Party suffered serious setbacks in
elections and faint-hearted colleagues counseled a
wholesale move to the right, he would caution, "The last
thing this country needs is two Republican parties." 

The senator was born rich, but his political heart has
always been with the less fortunate. Even now he is
fighting for an increase in the absurdly low - $5.15 an
hour - minimum wage. 

"I think you've got two strains in our society," he said.
"One, sort of Horatio Alger-like, says I'm doing well and
let me pick up the ladder after me. The other is more about
community, the sense that we are each other's brothers and
sisters and that we have a great responsibility for one
another in terms of our family, our community and our
country. Americans do best when they're challenged and
working together, and that's what we have to get back to." 

He said the success the U.S. has had in "knocking down the
walls of discrimination and bigotry in this country" and
setting a crucial, if imperfect, example of racial, ethnic
and religious tolerance for the rest of the world has been
the greatest advance he's seen over the past half-century. 

He said his greatest disappointment has been the failure
of the U.S. to recognize and seize important opportunities
for constructive international leadership since the fall of
the Berlin Wall. 

He blamed the Bush administration in particular, not even
attempting to conceal his partisan fangs. It's an
administration driven by ideology, he said, and that is
exactly the wrong approach for a world that is extremely
diverse and increasingly dangerous. 

Instead of America leading the world community, he said,
"We've seen the greatest fall from grace that we've ever
seen in the history of American foreign policy." 

The senator reminisced during our conversation about
several past conventions, including the one in 1960 when
he, at age 28, was working the Western states for his
brother Jack. During the tense delegate count to determine
the nomination, it was Wyoming (Ted's responsibility) that
put Jack over the top. 

He missed the 1964 convention in Atlantic City. He was in
the hospital with a broken back, the result of a plane
crash in June in which two people were killed. The
notorious 1968 convention in Chicago was less than three
months after the murder of his brother Robert. He watched
that one on television. 

Now, after so many years, the convention is in Boston, and
the senator seems as enthusiastic as he's ever been -
almost gleeful, in fact - about a presidential campaign.
During the interview he quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes: "As
life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he
should share the passion and action of his time, at peril
of being judged not to have lived." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/26/opinion/26herbert.html?ex=1091860537&ei=1&en=c3ab16848449d0b5


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