The Wit and Wisdom of Ted Kennedy (10 page)

—Statement at Senate Finance Committee
Hearings on Prescription Drug Coverage
for Seniors, March 29, 2000

Medicare is a specific contract between the people and their government. It says, “Work hard, pay into the trust fund during your working years, and you will have health security in your retirement years.” Today's elderly kept their part of the bargain. They fought in World War II and Korea. They got up every morning, went to work, played by the rules, raised their families. Their hard work laid the foundation for the prosperity our country enjoys today. But our country's promise to them is being broken today and every day, because Medicare does not cover prescription drugs . … It is time to honor that promise.

—Statement at Senate Finance Committee
Hearings on Prescription Drug Coverage
for Seniors, March 29, 2000

Medicare and Social Security are two of the most successful programs ever enacted. They are a solemn commitment to all Americans—North, South, East, and West—that if they contribute to trust funds during their working years, they will have financial security and health security in their golden years.

—Speech on the 30th Anniversary of Medicare,
July 25, 1995

In any given year, one-third of the uninsured go without needed medical care. Eight million uninsured Americans fail to take medication their doctors prescribe because they cannot afford to fill the prescription. Four hundred thousand children suffering from asthma never see a doctor. Five hundred thousand children with recurrent earaches never see a doctor. Thirty-two thousand Americans with heart disease go without life-saving and life-enhancing bypass surgery or angioplasty—because they are uninsured. Twenty-seven thousand uninsured women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. They are twice as likely as insured women not to receive medical treatment until their cancer has already spread in their bodies.

The chilling bottom line is that eighty-three thousand Americans die every year because they have no insurance. Being uninsured is the seventh leading cause of death in America. Our failure to provide health insurance for every citizen kills more people than kidney disease, liver disease, and AIDS combined.

—Statement on “President Bush's Fantasy Budget,”
February 21, 2001

Nurses are the backbone of an effective health care system. We cannot have a quality health care system without quality care by nurses.

—Statement urging the passage of the Nurse
Reinvestment Act, July 22, 2002

With the sole exception of South Africa, no other industrialized nation in the world leaves its citizens in fear of financial ruin because of illness.

—Senate speech, December 9, 1978

As the crisis continues, it becomes more and more difficult for anyone to pretend that AIDS is someone else's problem. There are few of us who do not know someone who is either infected or affected by AIDS. In a very real way, we are all living with AIDS.

—Statement, May 14, 1996

One of our greatest fears as human beings is that one day we'll learn that we—or a loved one—have cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, Parkinson's, or any of a number of dread and deadly diseases. But every day, thousands of Americans are stunned by that bad news. The phone rings. The doctor is on the line. And lives are changed forever by the awful news.

Stem cell research holds the greatest promise of hope for the millions of Americans who face these diseases. Research on these tiny cells may mean that the next time a doctor gives the bad news of horrible disease, the doctor can also say that these diseases are now curable.

—Statement at hearing on stem cell research,
September 5, 2001

Access to mental health services is one of the most important civil rights issues facing the nation. For too long, persons living with mental disorders have suffered discriminatory treatment at all levels of society. They have been forced to pay more for the services they need and to worry about their job security if their employer finds out about their condition. Sadly, in America today, patients with biochemical problems in their liver are treated with more compassion than those with biochemical problems in their brain. That kind of discriminatory treatment must end. No one questions the need for affordable treatment of physical illnesses. But those who suffer from mental illnesses face serious barriers in obtaining the services they need at prices they can afford. Like those suffering from physical illnesses, persons with mental disorders deserve quality care. Failure to obtain treatment can mean years of shattered dreams and unfulfilled potential. Americans with mental illness deserve health and happiness too—just as do those with physical illness.

—Remarks on the Mental Health Equitable Treatment
Act, November 29, 2001

When I thought of all the years, all the battles, and all the memories of my long public life, I felt confident in these closing days that while I will not be there when it happens, you [President Obama] will be the President who at long last signs into law the health care reform that is the great unfinished business of our society. For me, this cause stretched across decades; it has been disappointed, but never finally defeated. It was the cause of my life. And in the past year, the prospect of victory sustained me—and the work of achieving it summoned my energy and determination.

—Letter to President Obama, May 12, 2009

IN LIGHTER MOMENTS

T
ED
K
ENNEDY LOVED TO LAUGH.
S
O MANY OF THE
speakers who paid him tribute at his memorial service recalled times spent with him, laughing. That hearty, booming, generous laugh that his friends so loved to hear. He loved a good joke or funny story, and of course, like any good Irish politician, he could spin a fine yarn. His humor was never mean-spirited; he was often self-deprecating, always quick to laugh at his own foibles and quirks.

Of course, he found it easy enough to poke fun at the Republicans, too: They gave him plenty of good shots. Many of us remember how he used the opportunity at his speech at the Democratic National Convention of 1988. Then-Vice President George Bush was the Republican nominee. Reagan was finishing up his second term, leaving office as the public was still wondering who did what in the Iran-Contra arms-trading deal. Bush claimed not to have known what was going on. “Where was George?” Kennedy asked the thousands of assembled delegates. He came up with more examples of the Vice President's absence while scandals were breaking out in the Reagan administration, one after the other. “Where was George?” Kennedy asked again, and this time the crowd chanted along with him. Then he was on a roll: He'd name a Reagan era policy mess, and the crowd would roar, “Where was George?” He had the rhythm down pat and the crowd chanting, clapping, and laughing along with him.

While the mood was light and the crowd played along, behind the laughter there was a question worth thinking about. Why
wasn't
the Vice President involved in each of the policy matters that affected so many millions of Americans? While Kennedy made his point with humor, at the core of the question was a concern that still resonated after the laughter was gone.

That was often the case with even his lightest remarks: that you knew he cared. When he heard that North Carolina Senator (and arch-conservative) Jesse Helms, scheduled to undergo heart surgery, had quipped beforehand, “It's no piece of cake, but it sure beats listening to Ted Kennedy on the Senate floor,” he sent him this get-well note: “I would be happy to send you tapes of my recent Senate speeches if that will help your speedy recovery.”

If, as the old saw has it, laughter is the best medicine, then Ted Kennedy was a wonderfully skilled healer.

We have learned that it is important to take issues seriously, but never to take ourselves too seriously.

—Speech at Harvard, December 2008

Well, here I
don't
go again.

—Remark on announcing that he is not
running for president in 1988

Finally, after all of these years, when someone says, “Who does that damn Kennedy think he is,” there's only a one in three chance they're talking about me.

—Remark following the election of his son Patrick
to Congress, joining nephew Joseph Kennedy II.

Frankly, I don't mind not being president. I just mind that someone else is.

—Speech at the Washington Gridiron Club dinner,
March 1986

They [the Moral Majority] seem to think it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a Kennedy to come to the campus of Liberty Baptist College.

—Speech at Liberty Baptist College,
October 3, 1983

She's a wonderful, wonderful person, and we're looking to a happy and wonderful night … er, life.

—Comment about Victoria Reggie,
to whom he had just become engaged

Well, I learned to lose, and for a Kennedy, that's hard.

—Answer to the question of what he'd learned from
his failed run for the Democratic nomination
for President in 1980

It's a privilege to be here tonight among friends. It isn't always that way. Not long ago, I was addressing a group, and shortly after I started speaking, a heckler in the audience jumped to his feet and shouted: “Senator Kennedy is a horse's rear end.” I'm paraphrasing slightly. Right away, members of the audience rushed to my defense. They threw the heckler out, and told him never to come back. So I said to the chairman of the event, “I had no idea this was Kennedy country.” And the chairman said, “It isn't. It's horse country.”

—Remarks at the American Constitution Society
Conference, September 25, 2002

It's a frequent joke in Democratic circles, as you may have heard, that for Republicans, life begins at conception and ends at birth. We know it's not true, and it's certainly not true for education.

—Commencement address at Springfield College,
May 14, 2006

On hearing that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the husband of his niece Marie Shriver, and a lone Republican in a family of Democrats, was going to run for governor of California:

He's a brilliant actor, but what makes Republicans think he could do well in politics? Of course, it's hard to argue with Arnold when you're hanging upside down by the ankles.

—2003

Though very near the end of his life himself, Ted Kennedy found time to call Senator Chris Dodd, who was recuperating from prostate surgery. Kennedy told him:

Well, between going through prostate cancer surgery and going to town hall meetings [on the Obama health care plan], you made a great choice!

—Recounted by Senator Dodd at the memorial
service for Ted Kennedy, August 28, 2009

Speak of a vision, work hard, and get a good road map of Iowa.

—Quip when asked his advice for candidates for
president, as quoted in
Newsweek,
July 13, 1987

Upon hearing his father, Joseph Kennedy, Sr., the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, repeatedly addressed as “Your Excellency,” then-six-year-old Teddy Kennedy asked:

“Is that your new name, Daddy?”

—As reported in
The Daily Mail,
March 17, 1938

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS

G
ROWING UP
K
ENNEDY MEANS GROWING UP IN AN
atmosphere of high achievement, expectation of public service, and unquestioning devotion to family, faith, and country. Both parents made these demands of their children, but the patriarch of the family, Joseph P. Kennedy, had another expectation that he made explicit: Kennedys do not complain. They never whine. “There's no crying in this house,” he decreed.

All nine of his children were taught this lesson but those who survived to bring up their own families came to break away from this stoic creed. Suffering in silence, as many can testify, can be damaging to the soul. There's something to be said for finding ways to acknowledge the hurts and losses of life and to reflect on the meaning of painful events, and then share those reflections with those whose love and understanding can be counted on. It's not weakness to seek out a trusted soul under these circumstance; on the contrary, it can be a great source of strength.