As Shakespeare might have said, “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him”.

Senator Edward Kennedy died last night, a victim of the brain tumor diagnosed a year ago, after a legacy of nearly 50 years in the United States Senate.  There is little in Senator Kennedy’s political ideology that I would agree with.  We did not share a common vision of the role of government.  But I have to recognize his consistency, his persistence and his lifetime of accomplishment in the service of his Country.

There can be no doubt that Senator Kennedy was a voice in the Senate for people who lacked sufficient voice to be heard.  And from all that I have read, he was viewed by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle as a man whose word could be trusted.  I view both statements as high praise. 

The youngest of the Kennedy brothers, he was kept from seeking the highest political office by a number of scandals in his personal life.  So he rolled up his sleeves and went to work in the United States Senate as a life’s work.  He gave his full attention to the needs of the people of his state and of the Nation for almost a half century. 

John Fund, writer for the Wall Street Journal, described the caring showed by the Kennedy’s outside of politics and away from the lights in describing the personal support showed by the Senator and his wife for conservative columnist Robert Novak – who died last week of a similar brain tumor.  

“In his last months, he and his wife Vicky also found time to come to the aid of a fellow cancer sufferer -- my old boss and friend Bob Novak. He died only a week ago from the same type of brain tumor that felled Senator Kennedy. When the conservative columnist was diagnosed last year, Vicki Kennedy reached out to Novak with the lessons they'd learned about treatment. "He and his wife have treated me like a close friend . . . and urged me to opt for surgery at Duke University, which I did," Novak wrote in one of his last published columns. "The Kennedys were not concerned by political and ideological differences when someone's life was at stake, recalling at least the myth of milder days in Washington."

Fare well, Senator Kennedy.  You believed in what you did, you did it well for many years and the Country is better for it.