The Kennedy Heir
There is something deeply moving about this weekend's news that Caroline Kennedy had endorsed Sen. Obama and that Sen. Edward Kennedy would be endorsing him later today.
After all these years and all the tragedy and all the scandal, the Kennedy's have found their heir and he is an African-American man named Barack Hussein Obama. It is a satisfying, beautiful, appropriate culmination of the Kennedy story. It is, in many ways, the great victory of the Kennedy story... even the Kennedy myth.
It is, after all, an epic story.
The Kennedy brothers were groomed to lead America. But then death happened. The one destined to be the greatest, in their father's eyes, died in World War II. Then the next was assassinated in Dallas. Then the next was assassinated in Los Angeles. And the youngest one, Edward, bounced between greatness and self-destruction.
The beautiful heir, John Jr., was felled too.
Now Edward Kennedy, the patriarch, and Caroline Kennedy, that little girl from Camelot, are handing their mantle to a man who bears little resemblance to the Kennedy clan.
But it is fitting because, ultimately, Sen. Obama is the embodiment of the social justice and civil rights that the Kennedy family fought for. He is an African-American man, raised overseas, who has achieved success based on effort and merit. He is the Kennedy dream and that is what makes the endorsements fitting and not, ultimately, surprising. That his middle name is Hussein is as appropriate for our age as was the fact that John Kennedy's middle name was Fitzgerald.
For all the debate about the reality of the Kennedy myth versus the myth of the Kennedy myth, there is the central truth that their story was about hope and optimism and equality and social justice -- things found in abundance in Sen. Obama's campaign.
Read Caroline Kennedy's endorsement:
I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.
I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president -- not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.
No matter your political affiliation or orientation, it is hard not to love this story.
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You are ODing on Kennedy coolade, I'm afraid. Jack Kennedy wouldn't even be accepted in the Democrat party today. Ted Kennedy flirted with greatness?! Must have missed that one. Johnson did all the heavy lifting for civil rights, Kennedy was a reluctant supporter, not some kind of standard bearer. And finally, while Obama is technically "African American", it is just a technicality: he's not a descendant of slaves. It is funny to see Ted not support Billary though.
Gore will endorse Obama later this week.
Carolyn Kennedy and Senator Edward Kennedy have endorsed Obama, I think, because this family has always worked and stood for the Civil Rights of all people. However, in the last weeks of this Democratic Primary campaign season, the Kennedys and the world over, have seen the Clintons try to suppress Latino and African-American votes on the Nevada Strip, demean Martin Luther King in saying that it took a white man to get it done, when Martin Luther King paid the ultimate price with his life, race bait in South Carolina coloring Barack Obama as a black man instead of a man for all the people -- who just happens to be black and undignified behavior which should have no part in a Democratic candidate, in the Democratic Party and in society at large. Edward Kennedy, a world's statesmen, could not stand by and let Bill and Hillary Clinton tear apart the Democratic Party and the hard-fought gains the party has made in racial equality by behavior which seemed to divide and conquer for one's separative self.
And, for Carolyn Kennedy, who stated so eloquently in op-ed piece in the New York Times, sees in Barack, a man like her Father, able to inspire, unite and take us further forward towards peace and prosperity in the 21st Century.
It seems that this election, between Hillary and Barack, really is about the Past and the Future. It's about the decision: do we continue to stay in the Past and say its ok and then to reward divisive and negative behaviour, which only tears us down and causes a deep misstrust of one another -- or do we decide to choose to move away from such devisive behaviour -- choosing instead to move forward with the behaviour of goodwill and civility towards each other, which builds us up, and offers the promise of a more united and hopeful Future for All!
Have Caroline's kids figured out a way to get Kennedy into their names?
Suggestions welcome.
There are times when a powerful, great family chooses to gracefully clear the path for a new person from a new family & a new person to lead the nation & join them in the ranks of those who faithfully serve the nation. That is called grace, David.
Sen Obama's mother chose to create a family which practices serial monagamy as former President Clinton's mother did. You'll get used to it.
Rev or former Gov Huckabee faces Sen McCain & Mayor Rudy who practice serial monagomy. The late President Reagan of Mike's party practiced serial monagomy as does the Dole family. Mike may accommodate to the notion of serial monogamy if he stays in national politics.
Sen Obama will surprise his Republican opponents with his debating skills. Politics as practiced in Chicagoland is as rough as it gets & Sen Obama learned politics in Chicagoland.
As a JFK fan in 1960, I watched his leadership mature throughout his term, until the day I was in Dallas when he was killed. The sickness and finality of the 60's murdered our dreams for a bright future for our children. America is today fed-up with the corruption of our government over the last seven years. Karl Rove's "twilight zone" reality has come to an end. Wake up America, times are a changing. Either get in line or get out of the way-November is going to be a tidal wave
of angry voters.
THE TRAIN.
We missed it once... not again.
Are you in your 50s, or older?
Do you remember where you were...
The day John was shot?
The day Bobby was shot?
The day Martin was shot?
Those days closed a chapter of opportunity that has not opened again... until now.
Whatever your age, it is not too late or too soon to be a maker of - not only a witness to - history.
The thing that made so many of us so sad then was that we KNEW that we were watching something great fade away, like a mighty train into the mist, and we had no idea that we would ever see it again.
Well... now we are on the other end of that tortured cycle.
That train is coming again...
Not to give us a ride... that would be too easy.
But to roar into the future on tracks that WE help to lay.
That train is not Obama - he is only a conductor, and not even the only one, though he is now in front.
The train is US.
Young and old... black and white and red and brown and yellow... all of us.
US
North and South... East and West... city and country... all of us.
US
Tired of the foolishnes
US
And not just US.
The United States of US.
Go... Be... US.
Obama.
www.gobe.u
"It is one thing to preach change, but you have to practice what you preach. If Obama represented change and shift from the norm, why is getting endorsed by traditional career politicans like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry so important? If Obama really was the icon of change insiders like Kennedy and Kerry would not be buying into his campaign. I'm just not buying Obama's type of change." - Charles Winters
This is just beautiful. Nicely written and Caroline and her Uncle Teddy have cemented my respect and admiration of the Kennedy Clan. Thank you.
AMEN!
Hmmm... I wonder if Bobby Kennedy's kids, like many in the DNC, are not now sorry that they threw their support to Sen. Clinton so early (This did NOT happen yesterday.
They surely must know that their "Uncle Jack" would not be pleased by the race-baiting, ugly Republican tactics that their desperate for power friends, the Clintons, have been engaged in. Their own mother, ETHEL KENNEDY, claimed years ago that Sen. Obama would be our next president!
Carloine Kennedy & Sen Kennedy have made a moral, brave, & just decision to support & endorse Sen Obama. & I applaud them.
apparently your history only goes back to the fifties. you forgot that joe made his money bootlegging liquor and other nefarious activities during prohibition. then when he blackmailed his way to quasi respectability and was appointed ambassador to england he wanted to appease hitler. after coming home in disgrace, he then groomed his sons to be president. there is very little respect due joe kennedy and his sons were not perfect angels you seem to think they were.
yes, jfk, rfk and ted have done wonderful things for lots of people and we can be proud of them. but the fact remains that they reached the american dream by criminal enterprise.
Without fanfare, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend endorsed HIllary Clinton yesterday.
I hope we can work this all out. I respect the decision of Caroline and Senator Kennedy but I must say I give more weight to the endorsements by RFK's children.
Both on the ticket?
Confirming Caroline Kennedy's observation, I've voted for every Democratic candidate since 1972, but Obama will be the first who inspires me with optimism and pride. The rest were just the best available means for fighting back the ravages of Republicans.
The problem with this happy narrative is that Kennedy was fighter who threw everything that he had Nixon. The reality is that we are in a war for the very soul of our country. This is simply not a time for a peace time consigliere.
I believe that Hillary is the true heir to the Kennedy legacy because she not only knows what is right but is willing to fight to the death for it.
Obama would make a great Vice President and a great President after Hillary. He could be the next Lyndon Johnson repairing the great society into which I was born.
But, we must knock the right back on their heals before we compromise. The left is too far behind to start negotiating from here.
We have to win before we compromise. My heart wants to vote for Edwards or even Kucinich ( he is the only one right on health care). But Billary are the dogs of war that we must unleash upon those who would rob our country of liberty.
join the revolution at
www.theblo
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