Observing that through his own suffering, Ted Kennedy became more alive to the plight and suffering of others, US President Barack Obama on Sunday said Senator Kennedy is the greatest legislature of the time.
"He was a product of an age when the joy and nobility of politics prevented differences of party and philosophy from becoming barriers to cooperation and mutual respect – a time when adversaries still saw each other as patriots," Obama said in his eulogy for Edward Kennedy at today's funeral mass for him at Our lady of Perpetual Help Basilicia in Boston.
The last surviving son in a legendary political family, Senator Edward Kennedy (77) died battling cancer on Tuesday.
Besides, Obama and a large number of friends and families of the "Lion of the Senate", the funeral mass was attended by former US Presidents George W Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
"We can still hear his voice bellowing through the Senate chamber, face reddened, fist pounding the podium, a veritable force of nature, in support of health care or workers’ rights or civil rights," said Obama, who came from his vacation at Martha's Vineyard to attend the funeral mass.
"And yet, while his causes became deeply personal, his disagreements never did. While he was seen by his fiercest critics as a partisan lightning rod, that is not the prism through which Ted Kennedy saw the world, nor was it the prism through which his colleagues saw him," he said.
{{/usCountry}}"And yet, while his causes became deeply personal, his disagreements never did. While he was seen by his fiercest critics as a partisan lightning rod, that is not the prism through which Ted Kennedy saw the world, nor was it the prism through which his colleagues saw him," he said.
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