How will history remember Senator Edward M. Kennedy?

Last week during a fund raising tour for democratic candidates, Bill Clinton stopped to say a few words about the senior Senator from Massachusetts.

"I am something of a student of the history of our country," Clinton said. "I do believe that any fair reading of that history would say that Edward Kennedy was one of the four or five most productive, ablest, greatest United States senators that ever served this great Republic of ours."

Well, once again, Bill has suprised me. There have been 1,851 U.S. senators as of January 1999. To say that Ted is one of the top four or five of them in our history is at the very least a curious statement. Some very important figures in our history have served in the U.S. Senate. What about James Monroe, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster? Should Kennedy's name be included with these? I can only question the logic of that. In fact, I can only wonder how history will remember Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Kennedy was elected to the Senate on November 6, 1962 to finish his older brother's term and has been re-elected six consecutive times. He is up for re-election again in 2000. Since legislating has become his career, the interests of the nation as a whole are given a backseat to the interests of protecting his job. Whenever decisions regarding government funding are to be made, how can he consider where the money would do the most good when he has to work to protect his job? Over the last 37 years, Kennedy has become very proficient at bringing home the federal funding and the government jobs. Bringing home the pork is what keeps him in office. This is exactly why we need term limits on our congressmen. Decisions regarding federal spending should be made based on the interest of the national good, by people who are free to be objective in their decision making. So to say that Kennedy is one of the greatest to serve our Republic is something of a misnomer, Massachusetts maybe, but not the Republic. Hopefully, congress will pass term limits legislation and history will point to Kennedy as one of the prime reasons why .

On the night of July 18-19, 1969, a black Oldsmobile sedan plunged over the edge of a narrow bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Martha's Vineyard. The car was not discovered until morning. Inside the car was the body of Mary Jo Kopechne. A short while after the discovery -- though 10 hours after the time of the accident -- Edward Kennedy walked into the Edgartown police station on Martha's Vineyard and said that he had been the driver of the car. What really happened that night will never be known. Eventually he was convicted of leaving the scene of an accident. A far cry from what he may have deserved, the situation was at best suspicious. Will the history books tell our kids about this? Is this the kind of person we should consider one of the four or five greatest senators ever?

So how will history remember Ted Kennedy? Only time will tell.

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