Goodbye, Senator of Senators

It does not seem like a day to whine about my professional troubles. Or even my personal ones.
Being a politically interested kid, I learned pretty early that Senator Edward Moore Kennedy was a love-him-or-hate-him kind of guy. My family was pretty pro-Kennedy. At least my immediate family. I remember heading to the Midwest to find that a whole host of family members and friends hated the Kennedys. A whole host of the of the country, actually. Ted Kennedy's name raised a ton of money and attention for conservative causes and candidates, including some who later became his personal friend.
To the end, Kennedy remained someone who inspired deep resentment from his opponents. This was news to my little liberal, Northeastern self. And it bothered me, both as a child and as an adult. I remember that one of the horrible people who fired me earlier this year was incredibly derisive about Kennedy. It was the night when I realized that we probably would not ever be friends. Kennedy was not a bad litmus test.
Kennedy drove conservatives crazy partly because he was so unapologetic about his progressive views—even as I write this, his voice rings out on MSNBC: “I am proud to be a liberal.” Imagine having a president who would say such a thing. And that’s what liberals have done for more than a generation: imagined having a president like that. But we have not and apparently we will not. The incumbent president's passionless defense of health of care reform tells us that much.
My father stood in line to pay tribute to Sen. Robert Kennedy at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1968. Which has me thinking that I should get my butt to Boston to do the same thing for his brother, but I have an appointment with Time Warner Cable on Friday morning. So, with my misplaced priorities and limited budget, I will probably stay here. At least I will get to keep watching the memorials on TV.
Ted Kennedy belongs mostly now to history, which I suspect will take good care of him.