Saturday, September 05, 2009

Edward Kennedy Turns Bumbling into a Blessing

Three decades ago, Senator Edward Moore Kennedy ruined his last hope to be elected to the White House when a television interviewer asked him why he wanted to be president. He could not articulate an answer, offering instead a rambling, empty response that persuaded his party that he may not really have wanted or been suited for the job that his brother John had held and to which his brother Robert had aspired.

Yet as so often happened in an extraordinary life that careened from success to misfortune and scandal and back to success again, this bumbling moment worked to Mr. Kennedy’s advantage and, as it turned out, to the even greater advantage of the nation as a whole. Having failed in his insurgent challenge to President Jimmy Carter, Mr. Kennedy was finally free to focus with passion and political craft on his more natural calling as one of the master legislators and great reformers in the modern Senate.

Link
Senator Edward Kennedy, Editorial, New York Times, 26 August 2009.

Related Stories
Ted Kennedy: We Carry On, SFS, 1 September 2009.

Ted Kennedy Legislating with Principle, Mutuality and the Luck of the Irish, SFS, 1 September 2009.

Ted Kennedy Remembered Most for His Giving Heart, SFS, 1 September 2009.

Ted Kennedy Jnr’s Father Taught Him that Nothing is Impossible, SFS, 4 September 2009.

Stories on Related Sites
Freej: The Bright Star in the UAE Film Firmament, Experiencing the Emirates, 4 September 2009.

Coming Second or Losing in the America’s Cup, America’s Cup in the UAE, 4 September 2009.

Dr Geoff Pound

Geoff can be contacted by email at geoffpound(at)gmail.com on Facebook and Twitter.

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Image: “Free to focus.”