 President Barack Obama has saluted Sen. Edward Kennedy for surmounting pain and suffering to become a family patriarch and personification of American legislator. Eulogizing the 77-year-old Kennedy, who died Tuesday, Obama called the senator "the soul of the Democratic Party" and said that in his personal life, he lived up the expectations as "the heir to a weighty legacy."
So that leaves the Dems a soulless machine, eh?
| "Weighty legacy"? In view of the honourable senator's size issues, that was remarkably tactless of the Great Communicator. |
Obama led some 1,500 people, including three former presidents, at a funeral Mass for Kennedy at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basicala in Kennedy's beloved Boston. He said the senator handled life's challenges with a "spirit of resilience and good humor."
Yeah, I've heard he always liked Mary Jo jokes...
The country may have viewed him as "heir to a weighty legacy," Obama said, but he was playfully known by the youngest Kennedys less grandly: as the big cheese, "The Grand Fromage."
"Oh, Tish! That's French! [Smmoch! Smooch!]"
| Le grand fromage? Green... or ripe? |
The service drew to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica three of the four living former presidents,
| I checked, and it was President George H.W. Bush who went missing. I'm afraid I took a nap when I should have been watching the proceedings on television. |
dozens of Kennedy relatives,
pews full of current and former members of Congress and hundreds of others affected by the senator in ways large and small. No fewer than seven priests, 11 pallbearers and 29 honorary pallbearers took part.
| But no message from the pope, it has been reported. Perhaps he thought a senator, even when a Kennedy, is not the same as an actual head of state. |
Mournful performances came from tenor Placido Domingo and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
| I'm sure the musical numbers were beautifully performed. |
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