Friends, relatives to celebrate Kennedy's life
BOSTON -- Friends, relatives and political comrades, including Vice President Biden, are celebrating Sen. Edward Kennedy in an all-star Irish wake tonight, as the veteran Massachusetts lawmaker exits the national stage with all the pomp of the presidency that eluded him.
The ceremony, which features former presidential nominees from both political parties, will be followed Saturday with a funeral Mass where mourners will include two former presidents and more than 40 current and former members of Congress. President Obama will deliver a eulogy.
Afterwards, there will be a flight to Andrews Air Force Base and one last stately, sentimental procession to the U.S. Capitol where members of the public and Kennedy's staff will line up to bid him farewell. Then comes a hero's burial in Arlington National Cemetery next to the slain siblings whose mantle he inherited.
The last of a trio of brothers whose tragedies, traumas and triumphs are intimately intertwined with five decades of American history, Kennedy died Tuesday after a 15-month fight with brain cancer. The youngest of nine children, he was the only one of four brothers to live out a natural life.
Joseph Kennedy, the oldest of financier Joseph Kennedy's sons, was killed in World War II; John was slain by an assassin when he was president; former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy also was killed by a gunman during his 1968 presidential campaign.
Tonight's invitation-only memorial at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library highlights the wide-ranging and unlikely friendships Kennedy made during his long public career, his love of music and members of the storied family who sustained him during his last illness.
Speakers run the gamut from Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, to Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.
They include Sen. Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who was one of Kennedy's favorite partying companions when they were younger, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican Mormon from Utah whose fierce ideological differences with Kennedy mellowed into an affectionate political partnership.
