Ted Kennedy is Dead

He lived too long to receive the mythologizing that his older brothers received and, so, strode among us more like a man than a demigod. Of course, the mythologizing of Jack and Bobby placed them at level Ted Kennedy would never achieve. His lot was to stay behind and watch over the Kennedy clan and do the hard work in the Senate over decades, work that has wrought justice and help for millions of Americans. He has always been my favorite of the three and I have often wished that he could have been President. I think he would have made a good and principled president.

I'm sorry that he's gone. I'll miss his fire and compassion and fearlessness in promoting a righteous cause. Many are the better because Ted Kennedy lived.

clipped from abcnews.go.com Sen. Ted Kennedy died shortly before midnight Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass., at age 77. The man known as the "liberal lion of the Senate" had fought a more than year-long battle with brain cancer, and according to his son had lived longer with the disease than his doctors expected him to. Sen. Edward Moore Kennedy, the youngest Kennedy brother who was left to head the family's political dynasty after his brothers President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. Kennedy championed health care reform, working wages and equal rights in his storied career. In August, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the nation's highest civilian honor -- by President Obama. His daughter, Kara Kennedy, accepted the award on his behalf.