Unless you've been under a rock today you've surely heard the news that longtime Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy succumbed to a brain tumor late last night. I thought there was an interesting juxtaposition with another longtime Washington figure who died recently.
Whether it was my writing skills or luck of the draw (more likely the latter) one of my Patriot Post assignments last week was to write a short obituary of Robert Novak. (You can look at it on Page 3 here.) I found it quite interesting that Novak and Kennedy were almost the same age and passed away within days of each other due to a similar cause, a brain tumor.
Both also spent the primary part of their career in the Washington political scene but came to it and prospered in different ways. Novak worked his way up through the ranks of smaller papers before finally securing a plum Washington job covering (ironically) the Kennedy Administration. After that, Novak perfected his craft and developed a reputatation as a great "shoe leather" reporter before expanding his influence to column writing, books, and television.
On the other hand, Ted Kennedy spent most of his adult life in the United States Senate, where his influence grew primarily by family name and gaining seniority. It's worthy of note that Ted "inherited" his brother John's Senate seat vacated when JFK became President but couldn't legally hold the seat until two years later - a placeholder Senator assumed the post until Ted was old enough to serve.
Kennedy is best known, though, for his involvement with Mary Jo Kopechne and the Chappaquiddick coverup. Novak was best known for his gruff, pessimistic personality that earned him the nickname "the Prince of Darkness" - however, no deaths have been blamed on negligence on the part of Robert Novak. Reverse the situation and it's likely no one would have heard from Novak again after he completed his prison sentence.
One can argue that Novak's life wasn't as valuable as Kennedy's because he was but an observer on the political scene while Kennedy worked for the passage of laws which impacted American society, and as certainly as the sun rises tomorrow we'll hear for days about the career and achievements of Ted Kennedy. But if you look at which of these giants lived a live devoted to service to his fellow man and which took advantage of a family name and legacy to perpetrate shameful acts, we may find we're singing hosannas to the wrong victim of a brain tumor.