Ted Kennedy called to a better country

TEDDY KENNEDY was a prodigious fundraiser, especially for the conservatives who hated him with a consuming passion. He was the full-color villain of thousands of their direct-mail brochures.

Kennedy's image, his life's work - and, it must be said, his very real personal flaws - provided excellent incentives for his enemies to contribute to the people who did battle with him.

No doubt some of that money came from people whose lives had benefited from the dedication and skill of Sen. Edward Moore Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. Working people, the elderly - and those who hope their kids will do better than they have - are in Kennedy's debt whether they know it or not. And could be again, if his death from brain cancer somehow results in new support for the "cause of [his] life": health care as a right for every American.

TV and the Internet were filled yesterday with photographs and videos of a remarkable life lived at the center of modern U.S. history. Looking at the images of Kennedy as he changed with the years, we could not help but observe how so much of America has changed over that time, and not for the better. It has to a great extent turned away from liberal ideals and "the dream" that Kennedy insisted would "never die."

That dream goes way beyond the Senate business of the moment - health care, immigration, education, the selection of a Supreme Court justice - to include a philosophy that once dominated our culture but is fading: that Americans owe each other, not only equal opportunity, but support and dignity if they should fall short.

Ted Kennedy not only supported the cause of civil-rights and voting rights, he "felt it," in the words of U.S. Rep. John Lewis, himself a hero of the civil rights movement: "Not just something he spoke about, but he felt it in his bones."

Kennedy was no less fierce in his advocacy for women's reproductive rights and for protection for American workers on the job. His imprint can be found on every important piece of social legislation adopted in the past four decades - not only Medicare, but numerous pieces of legislation expanding educational opportunity, compassionate treatment of immigrants - and expansion of children's health insurance.

Kennedy was able to become, in the words of President Obama yesterday, "the greatest senator of our time," with the aid of an unparalleled staff. But it was his own unfailing warmth and courtesy to other senators, including Republicans, that allowed him to achieve occasional bipartisan breakthroughs.

So it's beyond shameless that some of those same senators were, just a few days ago, using Kennedy's illness as an excuse for not cooperating to produce a bipartisan health-care bill - as if their friend's absence justified the downright lies and demagoguery about the legislation which Kennedy helped shape and which was voted out of his Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee without a single Republican vote.

It was Sen. Ted Kennedy's sometimes difficult lot to carry on the legacy of his two older, martyred brothers. But his own legacy is just as important. Given the gift of years, the legislation he championed likely has improved the lives of more Americans than did either Robert or John.

But Ted Kennedy's ultimate contribution may be in his continuing belief, in the face of disturbing evidence to the contrary, that Americans will come around again to the idea that we are all in this together. As he said in his triumphant appearance at the Democratic National Convention last year, "We have not lost our belief that we are all called to a better country and a newer world."