The Big Questions

1.      What qualifies a person to be considered "a great man" or "a great woman"?

2.      To what degree must a person's record coincide with your personal values for you to recognize that person's achievements as valuable?

3.      To what degree should a major failing in a person's past color the final assessment of that person?

4.      Under what conditions is a willingness to work with people with whom you disagree in basic philosophy the right thing to do? When is it better to accept no progress at all rather than a compromise that includes features you don't like?

5.      What does it mean to call a body of work one's legacy?

 1.  I think a great person can be recognized by one’s accomplishments and impact on history.  For example:  I think John Kennedy’s place is determined by the character of his vision and the people who shared it; his brother Edward, by his passionate legislative accomplishments with others.

2.  My personal values are influenced by the accomplishments of others who are models, mentors, teachers, voices, prophets, and visionaries.  As I grow and encounter other such people, I hope my values are strengthened, altered and expanded.  One value is John Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage” of congressmen who went against the grain and stood up for principles over party.  A good later example, I think, is Senator Howard Baker, who in 1978 supported Jimmy Carter’s Panama Canal Treaty.  I have a long personal letter from Senator Baker to my Grandmother explaining and defending his position:  “Decisions on the B-1 bomber, the MX Missile and SALT negotiations will, in the long run, be far more important to our national security than allowing Panama to operate the Canal in the year 2000,” he concluded. 

3.  “To err is human, to forgive divine,” says the Essays on Criticism.  I think that failings can strengthen people.  For John Kennedy, it was his fragile health that awakened him to his responsibilities as a Senator and visionary.  For Edward Kennedy, it was first Chappaquidick(sp) but later, in the political arena, his defeat by Jimmy Carter, partly because of the first.  Ironically, Carter’s defeat by Ronald Reagan and the ascendency of the Republican Party impelled Kennedy to take a new tack, working with the winds and not against them.  This carried him far in rough waters.  In the words of Tennyson he said, “the dream shall never die.” 

4.  It is a delicate balance to find the right path, to find synthesis and consensus, to set aside pride and personal security for the greater, longer, shared interest.  At some point, one may have to draw a line, to say “it is enough,” and to find a different approach.  It was Lyndon Johnson who had the courage, despite his failings, to seek true equality at great cost, including the demise of his dominant solid-south Democratic Party and the rise and 40-year reign of the “Southern-strategy,” “law and order” Republican Party which, in my humble opinion, disavowed its great principles of national unity, civil rights, conservation, and public education, public health care and public service in favor of the politics of division, hate, greed, fear, fraud, complaint, blame, and now anger. 

5.  In the case of Edward Kennedy, he will be measured by the depth and breadth of his legislation (his vision), particularly on the crucial matter of health care where he favored national health insurance.  It will be a true litmus test to see if the mass media will cover the substance of his position amid the cacophony and confusion, the sound and fury it has created and placed at the feet of President Obama while idolizing the image of Senator Kennedy.  I can only hope that the vision and the dream of national health insurance will never die and that one day will triumph and be a true reflection of America’s value in the world.