Ted Kennedy, in his own words

[kpete]

Excerpts provided to POLITICO from “True Compass: A Memoir,” by Edward M. Kennedy (532 pages, $35), published Monday by TWELVE:




ON HIS FIRST MARRIAGE: “Joan and I were young and naïve about what it took to have a successful relationship. We certainly had not spent a lot of time together during our courtship, and we didn’t spend the necessary time together in the early years….We both had high expectations for a successful marriage. Sadly, that was not to be. Joan was private, contemplative, and artistic, while I was public, political, and on the go. We probably would have realized that we had fundamentally different temperaments if we had taken more time to get to know each other before we married, but we didn’t want to wait. We thought we were in love. And I will grant that at the time I met her, I was keen to join my brothers as a married man, a family man. How could I not, given that ‘family’ virtually defined my entire consciousness? Perhaps I’d assured myself that the core requirement in a marriage, compatibility, would develop naturally once the vows were exchanged. My parents and siblings were well disposed toward Joan. Yet as time went on, the awareness deepened among all of us that something fundamental was not working right. Our relationship atrophied. We remained together for many years longer than we were happy, but I don’t think either of us seriously considered a divorce for most of those years. So many other things were going on in our lives, so many difficulties, so many tragedies, that breaking up our marriage just wasn’t on the agenda. The reasons were many: our children, our faith, my career, and perhaps fear of change. To compound our mutual unhappiness, as Joan herself has discussed publicly many times, she suffered with alcoholism. I myself drank too much at times and feel exceedingly lucky to have been spared addiction. I do not blame Joan for the demise of our marriage. Nor do I agree with some of the account she has given as to the reasons for its demise. I regret my failings and accept responsibility for them and will leave it at that.” (pages 183-184).

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27119.html#ixzz0R5YwSzSH


ON BOBBY’S DEATH: “The months following Bobby’s death are a blur in my memory. One day I decided that going back to work would help relieve the emptiness. I got into my car and drove toward Capitol hill. When the Senate Office Building came into view, I began breathing heavily. I turned the car around and went back home. When I finally was able to enter the building, I found that I could not concentrate on my Senate work. I would go and visit my father on the Cape for a couple of days, and then I would go sailing. Sometimes I sailed alone. Sometimes I sailed with a friend. Sometimes I sailed for long distances. Sometimes I sailed to Maine. I surrendered myself to the sea and the wind and the sun and the stars on these voyages. I let my mind drift, when it would, from my sorrows to a semblance of the momentous joy I have always felt at the way a sailboat moves through the water. I love sailing in the day, but there’s something about sailing at night. And on these nights in particular, my grieving was subsumed into a sense of oneness with the sky and the sea. The darkness helped me to feel the movement of the boat, and the movement of the sea, and it helped displace the emptiness inside me with the awareness of direction. An awareness that there is a beginning to the voyage and an end to the voyage, and that this beginning and ending is a part of the natural order of things.” (pages 273-274).

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27119.html#ixzz0R5ZF3yiW


ON CHAPPAQUIDDICK: “That night on Chappaquiddick Island ended in a horrible tragedy that haunts me every day of my life. I had suffered sudden and violent loss far too many times, but this night was different. This night I was responsible. It was an accident, but I was responsible….”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27119_Page2.html#ixzz0R5ZMGLTe


ON WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE SENATE TODAY: “I think of the withering away of collegiality and sense of collective mission as the corruption of the Senate. I don’t mean corruption in a legal sense; rather I mean corruption in the sense that things are broken. This breakdown has been driven primarily by two factors. First, there are forces that actually do not want the Senate to meet and be active in the affairs of the nation. If the Senate is not active, legislation slows down, we don’t deal with the hard issues, because dealing with them suggests change. And second is the distorted influence of money and the power of vested interests in the legislative process. I don’t think any unbiased observer can deny that the way campaigns are financed has an unhealthy influence on the legislative process.” (page 487)

more excerpts:
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27119_Page3.html#ixzz0R5Zs69Us

[graywarrior]

1. His book is going to break hearts and spiritually fulfill us at the same time

I am really looking forward to reading it.