August 30, 2009
Sen Kennedy (eulogies/funeral music/speeches/videos)
Meet the Press: DAVID GREGORY with lawyer, ex-Lt Governor of Maryland, the oldest grandchild of Rose and Joseph Kennedy, and of course Ted Kennedy’s niece – KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND, presidential historian DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN and Senator Kennedy’s longtime political adviser BOB SHRUM - who crafted the famous 1980 Convention speech. I always wondered who he was.
FYI: After Caroline, Patrick and Ted Kennedy endorsed barry – Hillary Clinton endorsees: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Robert F. Kennedy Jr and Kerry Kennedy wrote an op-ed (1-29-08). It was a remarkable gesture. I imagine barry’s cowardly refusal to shake then Sen Clinton’s hand might have had something to do with it.
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Here the panel discusses the importance of Ted Kennedy’s faith, the 1980 campaign, how Sen Kennedy kept fighting, his letter to the Pope, and his place in the history of senators.
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MR. GREGORY: Welcome to all of you. And, Kathleen, our deepest sympathies. And we’re very thankful that you’re here this morning to share your thoughts.
MS. KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND: Well, thank you. And I want to thank all the people across this country and really the world who have been so–shown an outpouring of love and affection and thanks to my uncle. And I want to also say Vicki has done an extraordinary job over the last few days helping out.
MR. GREGORY: You, you see that tape. Just on this program, the legacy on this program, really something.
MS. TOWNSEND: Well, he–it is extraordinary. Because all the time, as he said in it, despite the tragedies, despite his own mistakes, he says you can keep fighting. And I think, you know, as a, as a niece and member of this family, it was important for all of us to see this–our uncle, in the toughest times, always keep fighting, never giving up and saying to each of us, “You can do it, too,” and inspiring us and helping us and building us. And I’m telling you, you know, we were talking earlier in the green room about how it is tough not to have a father, and it’s–there’s a real loss in not having that. And he came through and he really reached out and embraced my family and, and, you know, John and Caroline.
MR. GREGORY: Doris, we, we talk about legacy. And you’re, as an historian, you look backward. But you look forward as well in this circumstance. The president talked about Kennedy as the senator of our time. Where does he rank?
MS. DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, it’s always scary for an historian to look forward. We, we are much more comfortable talking about Abraham Lincoln a hundred, 200 years ago. But I think I might be able to say that not only is he the greatest legislator of our time, he may be the greatest all-around senator of our time. The interesting thing is when then Senator John Kennedy was in the Senate in the ’50s, he created a committee to look at who were the great senators. And look at who they were, Teddy shared all their qualities. Henry Clay, the great legislator. Daniel Webster, the great orator. which is what President Obama said,
Teddy may not have had that stirring oratory, but he became a voice for the voiceless, right?
And then you’ve got Taft and you’ve got Norris and you’ve got the various progressives who all their lives fought for a cause. He fought for that liberal cause. He belongs there. Then you have Vandenberg, bipartisan leader. He’s all of those things. And then at the same time, he made the people in Massachusetts feel like he was one of them. I thought when we were sitting vigil, during the, the days be–the hours before he was actually taken to the memorial service, that you watched those people come through, ordinary people, every one of them knew him. Governor Patrick said, “I knew him before I met him.”
MR. GREGORY: Hm.
MS. GOODWIN: But people in Massachusetts met him. So you see these people come by, they’re saluting him, their Red Sox hat comes off, they’re doing the sign of the cross. And you talk to them–and as Kathleen knows–they all had a story. “He helped my grandmother, he helped my son, he was there.”
MS. GOODWIN: You put all those things together, I think he may be the greatest all-around senator of all time.
MR. GREGORY: Bob Shrum, you were so close to him throughout his career. But in that 1980 bid–and he addressed it when he was asked by Tim Russert about not achieving it. I guess he would joke on the campaign trail later that “I didn’t–I don’t mind not being president, I just mind that somebody else is.”
MR. BOB SHRUM: He actually said that all through the, all through the ’70s, too. But he certainly didn’t mind that Barack Obama became president, and I think he played an absolutely instrumental role in it.
[I wonder how he feels about it now? How much did he know about barry before he passed? At least barry has a huge assist up there now.]
MR. BOB SHRUM: I think that he would say that in–he did say that in 1980 he spent too much time thinking about whether to run for president and not enough time thinking about what he was going to say when he got out there. The course of least resistance was, with the lead he had in the polls, to make sure that he didn’t offend anyone. And this led to, in the initial stages of the campaign, not saying much.
Well, Ted Kennedy happened to be the worst politician I ever met in my life at saying nothing. He was maybe the best politician I ever saw at saying something. And actually, I think the oratory motivated people, stirred people, gave them a sense of his purpose. And a lot of people give good speeches. And I think he gave unbelievable speeches, but then he went and made those speeches become part of the life and fabric of the country, from the Americans with Disabilities Act to–there are six million kids in this country who are covered with health insurance today because of him. So he, he let into law the, the law to, to fight apartheid and set sanctions against South Africa. And you could go down a list of about 50, 60 or 70 gigantically significant pieces of legislation, and if any senator could claim one or two of them…
MS. GOODWIN: That’s right.
MR. SHRUM: …they would say, “I’ve had the most extraordinary career.” He could claim all of them.
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MR. GREGORY: Let me, let me ask about another aspect of his personal life, the personal struggles in his life. There was a such a poignant letter that he wrote to the Pope that was read at the burial last night, and I want to put a portion of it up on the screen:
“Most Holy Father, I asked President Obama to personally hand deliver this letter to you. … I am writing with deep humility to ask that you pray for me as my own health declines. I was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, and, although I continue treatment, the disease is taking its toll on me.
I am 77 years old and preparing for the next passage of life. I have been blessed to be a part of a wonderful family, and both of my parents, particularly my mother, kept our Catholic faith at the center of our lives.
That gift of faith has sustained, nurtured and provided solace to me in the darkest hours. I know that I have been an imperfect human being, but with the help of my faith, I have tried to right my path.”
Kathleen, the imperfect part of his being was something that was very public, from Chappaquiddick to the incident in Florida in 1991 to other struggles.
MS. TOWNSEND: Right.
MR. GREGORY: How did he make–take stock of that in the end?
MS. TOWNSEND: Well, that’s what–I mean, I have to say, I think that’s one of the great, important parts of the Catholic faith. We used to joke we were the church of sinners rather than the church of saints, and therefore you–we’re all sinners. And you can pray to God and say, “I–are you going to believe that I can make, make something better of my life?” rather than if you sin, you can never come back. And that is really what I think the Catholic faith is.
And you saw that yesterday when the, the Cardinals were there, the priests were there. There–they were saying, “This man is going to heaven, because he was there for the least among us.”
I think one of the–I can’t remember who said this, but it was you can’t take your own faults and say, “Oh, I’m so bad. I can’t do anything else.” And some of us feel that, “Oh, well, we’re not worthy.” And he wouldn’t let that sense of judging himself to stop him from doing something better. And that’s a great spiritual understanding that I think he shares [present tense]with and was an inspiration to people of many faiths.
MR. GREGORY: Bob Shrum, you saw this up close, that as a public figure, as a politician, he had to come to the grips to the fact that the public treated those kinds of indiscretions differently in his era than they did in his brother’s era, and he had to adjust to that.
MR. SHRUM: You know, I think that whatever weaknesses, whatever happened, he had to live it out in public in a way that most people, most of us, live in private. I think Kathleen’s right, he never let it interfere with him. But there was always, for me, an incredible strength of character. I mean, this was someone who in 1980 everybody said he’s bound to win the nomination.
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
MR. SHRUM: He’s on his way. Nothing’s going to stop him. And when things got tough, when he went into the dark valley, he just kept going. And he inspired everybody in that campaign. We all ended up not getting paid, I mean, because we had no money.
MS. TOWNSEND: Right.
MR. SHRUM: He inspired everybody in that campaign to keep going. He did little things that really mattered and showed incredible generosity of spirit. We were down there in the Christmas before when we thought we were going to debate President Carter, and then the debate got canceled because the president said he had to take care of the hostage crisis. And he–my–he knew my parents lived not very far away, and he said, “Why don’t you have my parents come over and have dinner with my mother and me?” And my mother, her first reaction was, “I can’t possibly do that. I haven’t had my hair fixed.” [ha-ha.] And my father said, “We’re going to go.”
MS. GOODWIN: “You’re coming.”
MR. SHRUM: And we went over there, and she’d broken her leg earlier, and he had two advance guys carry her into the house. She sat with your grandmother and they talked about their devotion to the Blessed Mother…
MS. TOWNSEND: Right.
MR. SHRUM: …for about an hour, an hour and a half…
MS. TOWNSEND: Exactly.
MR. SHRUM: …while he showed my, my father and my nephew around that house and told them everything that had happened in that house.
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
MR. SHRUM: And they could’ve been the leaders of another country, the way he was treating them.
[That's what it means to be Irish.]
MS. TOWNSEND: Yeah.
MR. SHRUM: And I think he did that with people. And you know those crowds that people are talking about? I wasn’t surprised to see, in the lead up to his death and afterward, what journalists said, what historians said, what others have said. All those people standing out there somehow or other got it. They got it…
MS. TOWNSEND: Yes.
MR. SHRUM: …that he cared about them and that he had changed their lives. And it was such a privilege to be a small part of that.
MR. GREGORY: I want to end, I think in a…
MS. TOWNSEND: And that they kept saying thank you.
[I was struck by that too.]
MR. SHRUM: Yeah.
MS. TOWNSEND: I mean, I don’t know, were you in the parade, but you could–as you, as you drove by…
MR. GREGORY: Hm.
MS. TOWNSEND: …”Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. God bless you.“
MS. GOODWIN: And, you know, to go to your point.
MS. TOWNSEND: It was really stunning.
MS. GOODWIN: You know, Hemingway once said, “Everyone is broken by life, but afterward many are strong in the broken places.” And that’s all you can really ask of a person is that they absorb–and when you looked at the letter to the pope, it was much deeper felt than when he was on MEET THE PRESS. That sounded more defensive in 1979. He had absorbed, I think, those sadnesses, the pains, the imperfections, the things that he did. And all you can do is to ask that person to become strong and make up for it by doing everything you can. And he said…
MR. SHRUM: You know the difference? In 1979, we rehearsed that answer.
MS. GOODWIN: Oh. That’s very interesting.
MR. SHRUM: That letter, that letter…
MS. GOODWIN: That’s very interesting.
MR. SHRUM: That letter came from his heart.
MS. GOODWIN: Wow.
MR. GREGORY: Can I end on something that I, I just–what I’ve taken from the last few days is the enduring lesson of perseverance. And there’s a couple of things I want to show; the aftermath of that crash in 1964 that almost took his life, and you see the determination on his face, waving to the crowd after he’d been so severely injured, then the image of last year at the convention. Despite such personal pain, such physical pain, he made a point of being there. But I think what was most poignant was the lesson that his son talked about at the funeral yesterday, that as a kid, losing his leg, and his dad wanted to take him out to go sledding, and he fell and he cried and he said, “I don’t think I can do this.” And this is what he said:
==video snip of eulogy [for full eulogy follow link at top]====
MR. TED KENNEDY JR.: ...slipped and I fell on the ice, and I started to cry. And I said, “I can’t do this.” I said, “I’ll never be able to climb up that hill.” And he lifted me up in his strong, gentle arms and said something I will never forget. He said, “I know you can do it. There is nothing that you can’t do. We’re going to climb that hill together, even if it takes us all day.”
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MR. GREGORY: Just 10 seconds left. That’s a legacy.
MS. TOWNSEND: It is the legacy. And I think it’s the legacy of Rose and Joseph Kennedy, who said to their children, “Persevere, get something done, make a difference.”
MR. GREGORY: Thank you all for sharing your thoughts on what has been, I know, an emotionally exhausting past several days. Thank you all very much.
MS. TOWNSEND: Thank you very much.
