温馨秋月
夜浴深秋对明月, 遥系温馨问他乡
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Edward Kennedy (2/ 22, 1932 – 8/ 25, 2009 ) |
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Senator from Massachusetts |
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November 7, 1962 – August 25, 2009 |
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Political party |
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Spouse(s) |
Joan Bennett Kennedy (1958–1982, divorced) |
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Children |
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Harvard College (AB) |
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Profession |
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Religion |
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Military service |
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Service/branch |
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Years of service |
1951–1953 |
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party . First elected in November 1962, he was elected nine times and served for 46 years in the U.S. Senate. At the time of his death, he was the second most senior member of the Senate, and the third-longest-serving senator in U.S. history. For many years the most prominent living member of the Kennedy family , he was the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy , both victims of assassinations, and the father of Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy .
Known as "The Lion of the Senate" through his long tenure and influence , h e was a proud liberal who believed government can and should play a role to make America a more economically just society, but was also known for working with Republicans to find compromises among senators with disparate views. Kennedy played a major role in passing many laws, including laws addressing immigration , cancer research , health insurance , apartheid , disability discrimination , AIDS care , civil rights , mental health benefits , children's health insurance , education and volunteering . In the 2000s, he led several unsuccessful immigration reform efforts. Over the course of decades, Kennedy's "cause of my life" was the enactment of universal health care , which he continued to work toward during the Obama administration .
In May 2008, Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and died on August 25, 2009 .
Kennedy entered Harvard College in 1950. In May 1951, he had a friend to take his Spanish language examination for him , and was caught and expelled .
Kennedy enlisted in the United States Army in June 195 1. His father's political connections ensured he was not deployed to the ongoing Korean War . He was discharged in March 1953 as a private first class .
He re-entered Harvard in summer 1953 and improved his study habits. He graduated from Harvard in 1956 with an A.B. in history and government.
Kennedy enrolled in the University of Virginia School of Law in 1956, and graduated from law school in 1959 .
Marriage, family, early career
While in law school, Kennedy met Virginia Joan Bennett , a senior there, who had worked as a model and won beauty contests, but was unfamiliar with the world of politics. They had three children together: Kara Anne (born February 27, 1960), Edward Jr. (born September 26, 1961), and Patrick (born July 14, 1967). By the mid-1960s, their marriage was troubled by his womanizing and her growing alcoholism.
Kennedy was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1959.In 1960, John Kennedy ran for President of the United States , and Ted managed his campaign in the Western states. Upon his victory in the general election, John vacated his Massachusetts Senate seat and asked Massachusetts Governor Foster Furcolo to name Kennedy family friend Ben Smith to fill out John's term , to ke ep the seat open for Ted.
In the 1962 U.S. Senate special election in Massachusetts , Kennedy first faced a Democratic Party primary challenge from Edward J. McCormack, Jr. , and won the September 1962 primary and then defeated Republican George Cabot Lodge II , in the special election .
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy, had been shot
On June 19, 1964, Kennedy was a passenger in a private Aero Commander 680 from Washington to Massachusetts that crashed on final approach into an apple orchard in bad weather . Kennedy had a severe injury . His wife Joan did the campaigning for him in the regular 1964 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts , and he defeated his Republican .
He was a leader in pushing through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 , which ended a quota system based upon national origin . He also played a role in creation of the National Teachers Corps .
he Democratic nomination in the 1968 presidential election , Robert won the crucial California primary on June 4, 1968, was shot in Los Angeles and died .
At the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention , t he 36-year-old Kennedy was seen as the natural heir to his brothers . Kennedy rejected any move to place his name before the convention as a candidate for the nomination.
Following Republican Richard Nixon 's victory in November, Kennedy was widely assumed to be the front-runner for the 1972 Democratic nomination. H e appeared conflicted by the inevitability of having to run for the position. Kennedy reportedly observed, "I know that I'm going to get my ass shot off one day, and I don't want to."
On the night of July 18, 1969, Kennedy was on Martha's Vineyard 's Chappaquiddick Island at a party for the " Boiler Room Girls ", a group of young women who had worked on his brother Robert's presidential campaign the year before. Kennedy left the party, driving 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne and later accidentally drove off Dike Bridge into a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island. Kennedy escaped and left the scene. He did not call authorities until after Kopechne's body was discovered the following day. On July 25, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a sentence of two months in jail, suspended . Kennedy asked the Massachusetts electorate whether he should stay in office and, after getting a favorable response, he did so.
Kennedy easily won re-election to another term in the Senate in 1970 against underfunded Republican candidate Josiah Spaulding .
Kennedy had declared, shortly after Chappaquiddick, that he would not be a candidate in the 1972 U.S. presidential election . Nevertheless, polls in 1971 suggested he could win the nomination if he tried . At the 1972 Democratic National Convention McGovern repeatedly tried to recruit Kennedy as his vice presidential running mate, but was turned down. McGovern finally chose Kennedy's brother-in-law Sargent Shriver .
Meanwhile, Kennedy renewed his efforts for national health insurance. While proposing a single-payer solution favored by organized labor, he also negotiated with the Nixon administration on their preferred employer-based, HMO -oriented solution.The two sides could not come to agreement, and Kennedy would later regret not seizing upon the Nixon plan. In the wake of the Watergate scandal , Kennedy pushed campaign finance reform ; he was a leading force behind passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974 , which set contribution limits and established public financing for presidential elections.
Kennedy was again much talked about as a contender in the 1976 U.S. presidential election . But Chappaquiddick was still in the news, Kennedy announced that for family reasons he would not run in the 1976 election . The eventual Democratic nominee, Jimmy Carter , built little by way of a relationship with Kennedy during his primary campaign, the convention, or the general election campaign.The Carter administration years were Kennedy's least successful as a politician.
Kennedy and his wife Joan separated in 1977, although they still staged joint appearances at some public events. Kennedy visited China on a goodwill mission in late December 1977, meeting with leader Deng Xiaoping and eventually gaining permission for a number of Mainland Chinese nationals to leave the country; in 1978, he also visited the Soviet Union and Brezhnev and dissidents there again . Carter and Kennedy had another falling out on national health care during 1978, capped by Carter's concern about the proposed $60 billion cost and Kennedy's speech at the Democratic mid-term convention saying "Sometimes a party must sail against the wind."
Kennedy finally ran for the Democratic nomination in the 1980 presidential election by launching an unusual, insurgent campaign against the incumbent Carter, a member of his own party. Labor unions urged Kennedy to run, as did some Democratic party officials who feared that Carter's unpopularity would lead to bad losses in the 1980 congressional elections. By August 1979, when Kennedy decided to run, polls showed him with a 2-to-1 advantage over Carter . Kennedy formally announced his campaign on November 7, 1979, at Boston's Faneuil Hall . The Iranian hostage crisis , which began on November 4, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan , which began on December 27, caused the electorate to rally around the president, allowed Carter to pursue a Rose Garden strategy of staying at the White House, and knocked Kennedy's campaign out of the headlines.
Chappaquiddick hurt Kennedy badly among Catholic voters . Carter had enough delegates to clinch the nomination . Kennedy carried his campaign on to the 1980 Democratic National Convention , hoping to pass a rule there that would free delegates from being bound by primary results and open the convention. This move failed on the first night of the convention, and Kennedy withdrew. On the second night, August 12, Kennedy delivered the most famous speech of his career. Drawing on allusions to and quotes of Martin Luther King, Jr. , Franklin Delano Roosevelt , and Alfred Lord Tennyson to say that American liberalism was not passé, he concluded with the words:.
For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.
On the final night, however, Kennedy arrived late after Carter's acceptance speech, and while he shook Carter's hand, he failed to raise Carter's arm in the traditional show of party unity. Carter's difficulty in securing Kennedy supporters during the general election campaign was one of many causes that led to his defeat in November by Ronald Reagan .
The 1980 election saw the Republicans capture not just the presidency but control of the Senate as well. Kennedy did not dwell upon his presidential loss . He chose to become the ranking member of the Labor and Public Welfare Committee . Kennedy became a committed champion of women's issues and of gay rights, and established relationships with select Republican senators in an effort to block Reagan's actions and preserve and improve the Voting Rights Act , funding for AIDS treatment
In January 1981, Ted and Joan Kennedy announced they were getting a divorce and she received a reported $4 million settlement in 1982.
Kennedy easily defeated Republican businessman Ray Shamie to win re-election in 1982. Senate leaders granted him a seat on the Armed Services Committee , while allowing him to keep his other major seats despite the traditional limit of two such seats. Kennedy became the Senate's leading advocate for a nuclear freeze .
Kennedy publicly cut short any talk that he might run in the 1988 presidential election . He added: "I know this decision means I may never be president. But the pursuit of the presidency is not my life. Public service is."
Kennedy used his legislative skills to get passed the COBRA Act , which extended employer-based health benefits after leaving a job. Following the 1986 congressional elections , the Democrats regained control of the Senate and Kennedy became chair of the Labor and Public Welfare Committee.
In the 1988 presidential election, Kennedy supported the eventual Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis , from the start of the campaign. [117] In the fall, Dukakis fell to George H. W. Bush , but Kennedy won re-election to the Senate over Republican Joseph D. Malone . D uring 1989 with Bush chief of staff John H. Sununu and Attorney General Richard Thornburgh to secure Bush's approval, he directed passage of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 . Kennedy had personal interest in the bill due to his sister Rosemary's condition and his son's lost leg .
Personal life
Although Kennedy was an accomplished legislator, his personal life was troubled during this time. His weight fluctuated wildly, he drank heavily at . He chased women frequently but did not want to commit to anything long-term. He often caroused with fellow Senator Chris Dodd twice in 1985 they were in drunken incidents in Washington restaurants, with one involving unwelcome physical contact with a waitress.
Kennedy's personal life came to dominate his image. In 1989 the European paparazzi photographed him having sex on a motorboat. In February 1990, Michael Kelly published his long, thorough profile "Ted Kennedy on the Rocks" in GQ magazine. It captured Kennedy as "an aging Irish boyo clutching a bottle and diddling a blonde," portrayed him as a Regency rake , and brought his behavior to the forefront of public attention.
On Easter weekend 1991, Kennedy was at a get-together at the family's Palm Beach, Florida estate . He visit ed to a local bar, getting his son Patrick and nephew William Kennedy Smith to accompany him. Patrick Kennedy and Smith returned with women they met there, Michelle Cassone and Patricia Bowman. Smith and Bowman went out on the beach, where they had sex that he said was consensual and she said was rape.The local police made a delayed investigation; soon Kennedy sources were feeding the press with negative information about Bowman's background and several mainstream newspapers broke a taboo by publishing her name.Due to the Palm Beach media attention and the Thomas hearings, Kennedy's public image suffered. In December 1991, the William Kennedy Smith rape trial was held; it was nationally televised and the most watched until the O. J. Simpson murder case several years later . Smith was acquitted.
1990s
Meanwhile, at a June 17, 1991 dinner party, Kennedy saw Victoria Anne Reggie , a Washington lawyer at Keck, Mahin & Cate , a divorced mother of two, and the daughter of an old Kennedy family ally, Louisiana judge Edmund Reggie . They became engaged in March 1992, and were married by Judge A. David Mazzone on July 3, 1992 .
With no presidential ambitions left, Kennedy formed a good relationship with Democratic President Bill Clinton upon the latter taking office in 1993 . Kennedy floor managed successful passage of Clinton's National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993 that created the AmeriCorps program, and despite reservations supported the president on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) , but was not much involved in formation of the Clinton health care plan , which was run by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and others. It failed badly and damaged the prospects for such legislation for years to come. In 1994, Kennedy's strong recommendation of his former Judiciary Committee staffer Stephen Breyer played a role in Clinton appointing Breyer to the U.S. Supreme Court .
In the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts , Kennedy faced his first serious challenger, the young, telegenic, and very well funded Mitt Romney . Kennedy responded with a series of attack ads , which focused both on Romney's shifting political views and on the treatment of workers at a paper products plant owned by Romney's Bain Capital . Kennedy's new wife Vicki proved to be a strong asset in campaigning . In the November election, despite a very bad result for Democrats overall , Kennedy won re-election .
In 1996, Kennedy secured an increase in the minimum wage law . Kennedy was the prime mover behind quite a few Health Insurance Program .
Kennedy was a stalwart backer of President Clinton during the 1998 Lewinsky scandal , and voted to acquit Clinton on both charges .
On July 16, 1999, tragedy struck the Kennedy family again when a Piper Saratoga crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Martha's Vineyard . The accident killed its pilot John F. Kennedy, Jr. , his wife and sister-in-law .
Kennedy had an easy time with his re-election to the Senate in 2000 , as Republican lawyer and entrepreneur Jack E. Robinson III was sufficiently damaged by his past personal record that Republican state party officials refused to endorse him. George W. Bush saw Kennedy as a potential major ally in the Senate, and the two partnered together on the legislation. The No Child Left Behind Act was passed by Congress signed into law by Bush in January 2002.
Kennedy was in his Senate offices meeting with First Lady Laura Bush when the September 11, 2001, attacks took place. He pushed through legislation that provided healthcare and grief counseling benefits for the families, and recommended his former chief of staff Kenneth Feinberg as Special Master of the government's September 11th Victim Compensation Fund .
In reaction to the attacks, Kennedy was a supporter of the American-led 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan . However, Kennedy strongly opposed the Iraq War from the start, and was one of 23 senators voting against the Iraq War Resolution in October 2002.
Despite the strained relationship between Kennedy and Bush over No Child Left Behind spending, the two attempted to work together again on extending Medicare to cover prescription drug benefits. Kennedy's strategy was again doubted by other Democrats, but he saw the proposed $400 billion program as an opportunity that should not be missed. However, when the final formulation of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act contained provisions to steer seniors towards private plans, Kennedy switched to opposing it.
In the 2004 Democratic Party presidential primaries , Kennedy campaigned heavily for fellow Massachusetts Senator John Kerry .
In 2006, Kennedy released a children's book from the view of his dog Splash , My Senator and Me: A Dog's-Eye View of Washington, D.C . Also in 2006, Kennedy released a political history entitled America Back on Track.
Kennedy again easily won re-election to the Senate in 2006 .
Kennedy initially stated that he would support John Kerry again should he but Kerry said he would not. Kennedy then remained neutral as the 2008 Democratic nomination battle between Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Barack Obama intensified . Kennedy became dissatisfied with the tone of the Clinton campaign and what he saw as racially tinged remarks by Bill Clinton . Kennedy gave an endorsement to Obama on January 28, 2008, despite appeals by both Clintons not to do so.In return Kennedy gained a commitment from Obama to make universal health care a top priority of his administration if elected . Kennedy's endorsement was considered among the most influential that any Democrat could get, and raised the possibility of improving Obama's vote-getting among unions, Hispanics, and traditional base Democrats as the Super Tuesday primaries approached.
On May 17, 2008, Kennedy suffered a seizure , from cancerous brain tumor . On June 2, 2008, Kennedy underwent brain surgery at Duke University Medical Center in an attempt to remove as much of the tumor as possible.
Kennedy made his first post-illness public appearance on July 9, when he surprised the Senate by showing up to supply the added vote to break a Republican filibuster against a bill to preserve Medicare fees for doctors. Kennedy insisted on appearing during the first night of the 2008 Democratic National Convention on August 25, 2008 and delivered a speech to the delegates "this November, the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans. So, with Barack Obama and for you and for me, our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on."
On January 20, 2009, Kennedy attended Barack Obama's presidential inauguration in Washington, but then suffered a seizure at the luncheon immediately afterwards.
Kennedy died of his tumor on Tuesday, August 25, 2009, at his home in Hyannis Port .
Vacant Massachusetts Senate seat
See also: United States Senate special election in Massachusetts, 2010
With Kennedy's death, the Senate Democratic Party caucus has lost its 60-seat supermajority in the United States Senate. Massachusetts law requires that a vacant senate seat be filled through a special election to be held between 145 and 160 days after the vacancy. Shortly before his death, Kennedy had appealed to Democratic Governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick and the legislature to change state law to allow U.S. Senate vacancies to be temporarily filled by appointment during the period before the special election. The authority of the governor to fill Senate vacancies by appointment had been rescinded in 2004 to prevent then-Governor Mitt Romney , a Republican, from appointing a replacement for Senator John Kerry, a Democrat, if Kerry were to win the presidency . At that time, Kennedy successfully made personal appeals to Massachusetts Democratic legislative leaders to pass the bill, which had been stalled prior to his request.
He has been fighting so hard for health coverage for all Americans since a few decades ago. It's a pity that he no longer be able to see his dream (might) come(s) true.
He is a true hero: a rich man fighting all his life for the less fortunate...
May he rest in peace.