Kennedy's willingness to cross party lines only enhanced his credibility when he needed to stand alone as a progressive prophet. In early 2003, while so many in his party cowered in fear, Kennedy stood against the impending invasion of Iraq, warning that it would "undermine" the war against terrorism and "feed a rising tide of anti-Americanism overseas." For his entire career, in season and out, Kennedy had a righteous obsession with the profound injustices and shameful inefficiencies of an American health-care system that bankrupts the sick and inflicts needless agony on those who cannot cross a doctor's threshold. It would be an unforgivable tragedy if Kennedy's death were to weaken rather than strengthen the forces battling for health-care reform, which Kennedy called "the cause of my life." Yet Kennedy's liberalism was experimental, not rigid. Principles didn't change, but tactics and formulations were always subject to review. He gave annual speeches that amounted to a report on the state of American liberalism. He always sought to give heart to its partisans in dark times -- "Let's be who we are and not pretend to be something else," Kennedy said in early 1995, shortly after his party's devastating midterm defeat -- but he did not shrink from pointing to liberal shortcomings. In that speech, he insisted that "outcomes," not intentions, should determine whether government programs live or die. In 2005, he criticized liberals for failing to harness their creed to the country's core values. Many who didn't know Kennedy will wonder about the sources of the cross-partisan affection that will flow liberally in the coming days. It goes back to his humane identification with those in pain. Literally thousands of people have stories, and I offer my own. In 1995, Kennedy was at our church on a Sunday when a call for prayers came forth for a hospitalized member of our family. Kennedy eventually learned that it was my 3-year-old son, James, who was stricken with a rare condition. I returned home late that night after spending the day at the hospital. Waiting for me was a message from Ted Kennedy. A quiet voice described his own son's youthful illness and expressed a total understanding of the fear and pain I was experiencing. My son recovered, thank God, and I will never forget what Kennedy did. His compassion was real, not contrived, and it extended to individual human beings and not just to the masses who cheered him and will keep cheering for a long time.

E.J. Dionne Washington Post 8-27-09

With an avalanche of commemoratives, one forgets what Ted Kennedy stood for. Somehow, for those of us whose lament for Jack and Bobby were so persistently enduring over these years, we forget just how much Ted did for the country, and for persons who needed his liberal compassion to live better in the ambivalent world of US attitudes and politics. Ted had had bitter defeats, deficiencies of judgment, perhaps even a death on his hands that could have been avoided at Chappaquidick, but he churned on as a legislator and worked hard on education, health care, immigration and a host of other causes that meant a lot to many. He was, perhaps more than his famed brothers, a man who understood humanity and its foibles and tried to make a difference. I was always a bit indifferent toward his presence owing to the palpable loss the country experienced with the killings of his brothers, but I am glad he was working for the American people. I regret he was not on the scene for the final phases of the current health care reform process, which was one of the prime causes of his tenure in the Congress. Farewell, Senator Kennedy!......Bill P