Yesterday’s assembly at the Capitol steps, a vast outpouring of joy, tears, prayers, and songs in remembrance of Senator Edward M. Kennedy was not merely proof of the reverence that Capitol staffers felt for the senator, it was also a eulogy for something that is now gone from the United States Senate—a spirit of righteousness for the poor and the downcast.
No one wanted the hearse containing Teddy’s coffin to leave the Capitol for Arlington Cemetery. There was something vatic and possessed of magical thinking in the crowd, as if to say “if only we keep singing we can hold the senator’s spirit right here.”
Crowds are not always correct about the facts. St. Stephen comes to mind. But yesterday’s gathering at the Capitol was right—they were eulogizing a spirit of compassionate purpose that today’s Senate cannot admit and will not hear.
Ted Kennedy, for all his faults, could not be bought by lobbyists and he couldn’t be intimidated by the viciousness of opponents. Today’s Senate will not admit such men or women.
To paraphrase Will Rogers: “We have the worst government money can buy.”
The right wing Senate, today’s Senate, is like a feeble old Sicilian mule being pulled by a rope and prodded with sticks. It’s unable to stand for the weight of the lumber on its back, lumber from which the right wingers and lobbyists will eagerly build houses.
The Senate can’t stand up. The folks in yesterday’s nearly spontaneous assembly on Capitol Hill understand this.
In Sicily when the mule can’t stand, a richer peasant buys it, lumber and all, right on the spot where the animal lies in the street. Don’t ask about the mule…
Like millions of Americans I watched most of Senator Kennedy’s wake, funeral and much of the procession to the cemetery. I felt the greatest sadness when the crowd could hardly let go at the Capitol. And yes, I know why.
Later I heard MSNBC’s Chris Matthews opine (while trying to fill dead air time as the hearse made its way into the cemetery and all seemed impossibly slow as true life “is”) that the younger Kennedys haven’t embraced public office like their elders did. The speculative view was that the younger generation finds meaning in new ways: photography, film making, non-profit activism, etc. etc.
What Matthews didn’t say is that public service, particularly in Washington, and especially on Capitol Hill is now so entirely corrupt that no one possessed of sense and progressive passion can easily think of the Senate or the House of Representatives as being anything other than a place of covetous, polluted money grubbing and disdain.
It’s no wonder that crowd didn’t want to stop singing and let go…
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 