The dedication of the Edward M Kennedy Institute in Boston on Monday served as a bipartisan occasion for an array of speakers – culminating in President Barack Obama – to pay tribute to the late Ted Kennedy and the legacy of his 47 years in the Senate.
The institute, which is intended to teach future generations about the Senate, even includes a full-sized replica of the Senate chamber in Washington.
Speakers hailed Kennedy’s achievements and personality. Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts called him “the greatest senator of all time”; the Arizona Republican John McCain shared anecdotes of friendly battles with the Massachusetts Democrat on the Senate floor.
Vice-president Joe Biden hailed Kennedy as someone who understood that achieving consensus in the Senate was “arrived at from cumulative effect of personal relationships”.
Biden also noted that Kennedy proved wrong the famous political aphorism of former House speaker Tip O’Neill that “all politics is local”. Instead, Biden said, the younger brother of President John F Kennedy and Senator Robert F Kennedy showed that “all politics is personal”.
The event had many emotional moments: Senator Elizabeth Warren, who holds Kennedy’s seat, choked up when describing how he inspired her to enter politics. It culminated with Obama’s speech.
The president asked the rhetorical question “what if we carried ourselves more like Ted Kennedy?” and paid tribute to the Massachusetts Democrat as “someone who bridged the partisan divide over and over again”.
Obama also used the occasion to take jabs at current legislators, expressing his dismay at those “who fight to get in the Senate and then ... are afraid” to legislate. The president said that as a result “fear so permeates our politics instead of hope”.
The bipartisan institute, which features on its board two former Senate leaders, Democratic Tom Daschle and Republican Trent Lott, opens to the public on Tuesday.
