Because it is not just any era that ends with the passing of the senior senator from Massachusetts; it is that not-so-brief, shining moment we came to call Camelot.
The Kennedy magic and the Kennedy mystique are buried in Arlington National Cemetery along with President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert Kennedy, and now, Ted.
The Kennedy family goes on, but now it is different.
The current generation doesn’t have that “it factor” that their fathers, mothers, uncles and aunts did Rep. Patrick Kennedy once told me himself that he and his contemporaries know they can’t hope to match what Lerner and Lowe called the “fleeting wisp of glory,” their family has enjoyed since JFK entered politics in the mid-1940s.
After coming into our own as a nation after helping our British and French allies win World War II (say what you will about the Soviets, they held up their own end in the war), the election of JFK at the start of the 1960 put the world on notice that the United States had arrived.
In more than just election races, the Kennedy family was chosen by Americans to represent America. They were the ideal we wanted to present to ourselves and to the world as what we are all about — youthful, energetic, charismatic, good-looking, competitive, smart, classy, glamorous, seriously committed to public service and, perhaps most of all, winners.
We followed the family’s triumphs and tragedies, and even their mundane activities not only in the tabloid press but even in the more mainstream media, the way Great Britain does with its royal family. We did everything but keep score of their touch football games in Hyannis Port.
The tragic murders of President Kennedy, then Bobby — we presumed the familiarity of calling the Kennedys by their nicknames: Bobby, Jack, Jackie and Teddy, since we were, after all, claiming them as our own — meant they would be forever in our memories as young and vigorous, with the added stature of martyrdom to keep them always bigger than life.
Of the brothers — we also adapted the family ethic that it was only the men who really counted (hey, it was the 60s) — only Ted grew old and gray (OK, white). And while the Kennedy’s remained America’s family, some dissent started to rise, particularly from the right wing as familiarity bred contempt in some quarters.
We largely forgave the family its foibles — reports of carousing, womanizing and other bad-boy behavior — especially since the scandals were always of the personal variety and never political corruption.
It is a testament to America’s (and particularly Massachusetts’) love of and loyalty to the Kennedys, and of Ted’s own personal qualities of perseverance, hard work and affinity with the common man and the underdog, that he was able to not only remain in the U.S. Senate for 40 years after Chappaquiddick but to also make a serious bid for the presidency, albeit a losing one.
That incident, where 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne died in Kennedy’s car after he drove off a bridge (Kennedy made it out of the car, survived, and did not even report the accident until the next morning) after a party for workers in Bobby Kennedy’s presidential bid the year before, would have ended the career of most normal politicians and probably most extraordinary ones. But Ted managed to put that behind him and not only endure in politics but thrive. Like so many things Kennedy, it beggars explanation.
The Shakespeare quote so often applied to Ted Kennedy in the last few days: “I shall not look upon his like again” can just as easily be extended to what we have come to call “the Kennedy Clan.”
That is not entirely a bad thing. America is supposed to value rugged individualism, not family dynasties, which is why Camelot is (probably appropriately) dying with Ted.
But you have to admit, it was fun while it lasted, influencing America’s politics for 50 years. And as we should remember Ted Kennedy for all he did in his lifetime, as well as the stamp his storied family put on our nation and its politics that fascinated two generations of Americans.
”Don't let it be forgot That once there was a spot/For one brief shining moment that was known As Camelot.”

Unlikely
Perhaps the second most overused and hackneyed phrase in the English language is “snowball’s chance in Hell,” but my poor imagination can summon no other to describe the likelihood that Governor Carcieri will get the General Assembly to give him the power to refuse to spend appropriated funds, particularly since he has declared his intention to use that authority to withhold $32.5 million in funds for cities and towns.
It ain’t gonna happen, but it was probably the best response Carcieri had to an untenable situation.
The General Assembly dropped a $68 million budget gap in the governor’s lap, picking a figure out of the air to allow them to claim the budget was balanced and telling Carcieri, in effect, to go find a place to cut that amount. So Carcieri decided to gouge it out of the legislators’ two most important constituencies, cities and towns and state employees. If they don’t like it, let them find some other place to cut (which, to be fair, is what they should have done in the first place).
Even Carcieri acknowledges that state workers have borne the brunt of heavy cuts in the last few years, and, while he doesn’t acknowledge it, the local communities have been the governor’s whipping boys for the past couple of years, but hey, that’s politics.
General Assembly members have to run for re-election next year; Carcieri does not, so he doesn’t have to worry about alienating property taxpayers or public employee unions (he never seemed to give a whit about the unions).
But state legislators do, which is why the city and town cut is a non-starter. There is nothing to stop the governor from shutting state government down for 12 days if he has his head set on doing that, but lawmakers will likely start feeling pressure to do something about that as well.
Even under the best of circumstances, legislative leaders would probably never sit for Carcieri impounding the appropriations they had budgeted.
That is equivalent to giving the Republican governor a line-item veto over the budget. So far, the only unofficial response of the legislators to
Carcieri’s request that they give him the power to impound funds when they return in September has been to delay their return until October.
We’ll see what happens then.