A good American died this week, one, with whom I disagreed about almost everything. 

His worst moments were many and public.  Ted Kennedy will be remembered for his drinking, the unconscionable treatment of his first wife, the tragedy of Chappaquiddick and his unkind remarks during the Bork confirmation hearings.   Character weakness and circumstance often conspire to prevent us from making sufficient amends for our sins.  Long after the sinning, we still try to atone.   Few tried harder than Senator Kennedy.

Politics today is peopled by shallow actors tethered together in some Hollywood-style mutual admiration society. The Pelosis, Reids and Dodds are convinced that by co-opting the government to dispense favors, everyone will see that they are not just empty suits in search of love.  Like Presidents Nixon and Carter before them, many legislators are small men, longing for significance and hoping that power will magically transform them.

What did I like about Senator Kennedy?   He didn’t legislate to solve his self esteem problems.  He proposed legislation that he believed in and fought for.  When he advocated a position, he knew the argument for, the argument against and the counter-arguments for and against.  The senator could talk the details. He wasn’t a phony.  He made friends across the ideological divide, but remained religiously partisan.

In the late eighties, Kennedy responded to criticism from Democrats by acknowledging his personal shortcomings, characterizing them as “faults in the conduct of my private life.”   He went on to take responsibility and promise to do better.  Smaller men say “Even presidents have private lives.”

In politics, the small men call for changes in other men, other parties.  We see them, the “sorry I got caught" Republicans and the “didn’t know how I got such a favorable mortgage” Democrats.  Kennedy, like Reagan, campaigned against an incumbent president from his own party all the way to the convention.  You don’t risk political suicide for self-aggrandizement.  You do it for ideological conviction.   Reagan was about principle.  You should read the text of his GE speech for Goldwater in 1964.  1980 was hardly the perfect political storm for Kennedy.   If Kennedy had tunnel vision for the Presidency, he would have run in 1984.  To save the party from Carter, he had to run in 1980.

I think Senator Kennedy’s political philosophy was misguided to put it charitably.  But our lives are ultimately about more than political philosophy.  This man loved his family and his country and he worked hard for ideas he truly believed in.

Johnny Carson once interviewed a 95 year-old America Indian (if memory serves, he was a Spanish American war veteran).  The guest noted that he was so old, that he remembered when the men were made of iron and the ships were made of wood.  Kennedy was made of iron.  Few of his colleagues will be so remembered.