Senate Proceeding on Sep 10th, 2009 :: 0:25:20 to 0:38:20
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0:25:19 to 0:25:39( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: and leaders or their designees. a senator: m the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: i thank the chair. i would yield myself such time as i might use. the presiding officer: the senator is mr. kerry: mr. president, i

0:25:20 to 0:38:20( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: John Kerry

0:25:40 to 0:26:02( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: want to thank majority leader reid and minority leader mcconnell for the time that they have set aside for us today to rember ted kennedy, our senator for nearly a quarter of a century, a friend, the man i met first and who had a great influence on me in politics back

0:26:03 to 0:26:23( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: in 1962, when as a young about-to-be college student, i had the privilege of working as a volunteer in his first campaign for the united states senate. mr. president, to look at his

0:26:24 to 0:26:45( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: desk now cloaked in the velvet and the roses, a desk from which he championed so many important causes, a desk from which he regaled us, educated us and befriended us for so many years, and even more difficult for us to think of

0:26:46 to 0:27:06( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: nation's capital, without him. on many occasions in the senate, he was the indispensable man. onvery occasion in this chamber, he was a man whose heart was as big as heaven, whose optimism could overwhelm any doubter and whose joy for life was a wonderfully

0:27:07 to 0:27:28( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: contagious and completely irresistible thing. t ed loved poetry -- ted loved poetry, though the verse was ancient, the poet could have had ted in mind when he wrote one must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been. our day with ted kennedy was indeed splendid.

0:27:29 to 0:27:51( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: its impact immeasurable. just think for a moment what a different country we lived in before ted kennedy came to the senate in 1962 and what a more perfect union we live in for the 47 years that he served here. before ted kennedy had a voice in the senate and a vote in the senate, there was no civil

0:27:52 to 0:28:13( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: rights act, no voting rights act, no medicare, no medicaid, no vote for 18-year olds, no martin luther king jr. holiday, no meals on wheels, no equal funding for women's collegiate sports, no state health insurance program, no family

0:28:14 to 0:28:34( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: medical leave act, no americorps, no national service act. all of these are literally just a part of ted's legislative legacy. it's why the "boston globe" once wrote that in actual measurable impact on the lives of tens of millions of working families,

0:28:35 to 0:28:55( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: the elderly and the needy, ted pwhropbgs in the same -- belongs in the same sentence with franklin roosevelt. ted's season of service spanned the administration, the administration of ten presidents. he served with more than 350 senators, including those for whom our principal office

0:28:56 to 0:29:18( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: buildings are named: richard russell, everett dirksen, and phillip hart. he cast more than 15,000 votes. he wrote more than 2,500 bills. he had an important hand in shaping almost every single important law that affects our lives today. he helped create nearly every major social program in the last

0:29:19 to 0:29:39( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: 40 years. he was the senate's voice for civil rights, women's rights, human rights and the rights of workers. he stood against judges who would turn back the clock on constitutional freedoms. he pointed america away from war, first in vietnam, and, last, in iraq.

0:29:40 to 0:30:00( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: and for three decades, including the last days, he labored with all of his might to make health care a right for all americans. and through it all, even as he battled, he showed us how to be a good colleague, always loyal, always caring, his adversaries were never his

0:30:01 to 0:30:21( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: enemies. and his friends -- his friends always came first. in my office there's a photograph of the two of us on day one, 1985, my first day in the senate. ted signed it as humphrey b bogart would have said, this is the beginning of a beautiful

0:30:22 to 0:30:42( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: friendship. for almost 25 years it was a beautiful friendship as i worked at his side learning the best. there were moments when we had a difference on one issue or another, but we always found the way to move forward in friendship and in our efforts to represent the state. teddy was the best natural teacher that anyone in politics

0:30:43 to 0:31:03( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: could ask for. i may not always have been the best student, but he never stopped dispensing the lessons. i came to the senate out of an activist grassroots political base where the was policy positions. activists are s issue focused

0:31:04 to 0:31:24( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: and intent, they can inadvertently look past the personal touch or emotional connection for fear that it somehow distracts from the agenda. but teddy, through his actions, showed us how essential all of those other elements of political life are. yes, tip o'neill taught a generation of massachusetts politicians that all politics is

0:31:25 to 0:31:46( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: local. it was teddy who went beyond that that taught us that all politics is personal. all of us knew the kindness of ted kennedy at one time or another, mr. president, and i refer senate, i came down with pneumonia, and i was then single and tired and ted deemed me not

0:31:47 to 0:32:09( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: to be getting the care tha i ought to get. and so next thing i knew he literally instructed me to depart for florida and stay in the kennedy home in palm beach an be cared for until i got well. and, indeed, i did exactly that. he also showed up at my house the evening of inauguration day

0:32:10 to 0:32:30( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: of dodd, we shared laughter an stories of the campaignrail. we were loud enough and had enough fun, that somehow someone might have mistaken that we might have she understood the moment an understood that the best tonic was laughter and friendship.

0:32:31 to 0:32:52( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: many times that's all he knew, was to be there. you couldn't help but feel better with him around. all of us who knew him were privileged enough to share ted's love of life and laughter. in the cloakroom sometimes the roars of laughter were so great senate floor. once ted was holding forth -- i

0:32:53 to 0:33:14( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: won't share the topic -- and the presiding officer pounded the gavel and demanded that there will be order in the senate and in the cloakroom. i think that was the first time that i heard that all for order. his pranks were also works of art and one night after a series of

0:33:15 to 0:33:35( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: thursday night votes that pushed senators past the time to catch commercial flights home to the northeast, senator lautenberg arranged for a private charter for himself in order to get up to massachusetts. it turned out a number of senators needed to travel in that direction.

0:33:36 to 0:33:57( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: when he heard of it, he offered senators claiborne, pell, the next week when we were reassembled on the floor of the senate, official-looking envelopes were delivered to us from frank lautenberg's signature with expenses.

0:33:58 to 0:34:20( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: and senator pell roared down the aisle and came up to me about this minor little aircraft and how could it possibly cost so much. senator lautenberg was red faced protesting that he knew nothing about it with when out of the corner of my eye i spy ted kennedy up there at his desk

0:34:21 to 0:34:43( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: with a chesire cat grin. the mystery was solved, ted secured a few sheets of lautenberg's stationery and sent false bills to each of us. he once told me that his earliest recollections were pillow fights with with his brother jack and in the years that followed sailing with jack. at the end of the day ted's job

0:34:44 to 0:35:04( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: was the long task of folding and packing the sails away. in politics an in the great progressive battles that were his life's work, ted never packed the sails away. were he here today, he would exhort us to sail into the wind as he did so many there is so much to do. so much tt he wanted to do.

0:35:05 to 0:35:29( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: and so much that he would want us to do now. not in his name, but in his spirit. when ted was 12 years old, he spent hours with his brother jack taking turns, reading the war poem "john brown's body." it is book length and filled with great an terrible scenes of

0:35:30 to 0:35:50( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: battle and hardbreaking loss of home. it surprises me to read it now and find so much in it that, in fact, reminds me of ted. sometimes it was written -- ther itself. sometimes the sertsd earth is tawned by something.

0:35:51 to 0:36:12( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: the polar stars moved united states an unfathomed force that will not have it anymore. call it god or fate, call it economic law, that force exists and moves, and when it moves, it will employ a hard and actual stone to batter into bits an

0:36:13 to 0:36:33( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: actual wall and change the actual scheme of things. ted kennedy was such a stone who actually changed the scheme of things on so many issues for so many people. over the years i've received hundreds of handwritten notes from ted. some funny, some touching, all

0:36:34 to 0:36:55( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: of them treasures. before thanksgiving ted sent me a note that he would spend his holiday with his beloved sailboat. he added, if you're out on the sound, look for the mia, she indeed, i will never sail the sown again without thinking of the mia and her big-hearted

0:36:56 to 0:37:17( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: skipper. there is an anonymous quote that i once read, which because of ted's faith, which was grounded and deeply important to him. i think it describes how we should think of his departure from the senate. it says -- i am standing upon

0:37:18 to 0:37:39( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: the sea shore, a ship at my side spreads his white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. she is an object of beauty and strength and i stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. then someone at my side says, there, she's gone.

0:37:40 to 0:38:00( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: gone where? gone from my sight, that is all. she is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my an just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. her diminished size is in me, not in her.

0:38:01 to 0:38:22( Edit History Discussion )

John Kerry: and just at the moment when someone at my side says, there, she's gone, there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, there she comes, and that is dying. that is the way ted kennedy will live here in the senate. his spirit, his words, and the