I watched the Kennedy funeral on the Boston Globe's website today, and thought back to the other Kennedy funerals I watched on black-and-white TV. Where would we be as a country if Jack and Bobby had lived?
The Kennedy brothers were complex people, that is to say, no different from anyone else, with faults and virtues. What strikes my jaded, cynical heart is that they saw government as an instrument to improve people's lives. That practical idealism has almost disappeared from our politics; it remains to be seen if the Obama administration can revive it.
I lived on Mission Hill for many years, and I remember walking up the hill in all weathers, seeing the weather formations coming in, and how the clouds would let loose as they rose in altitude. The steady rain in Boston today seems somehow fitting for Edward Kennedy's funeral - the sky and the earth solemn and contemplative.
