26 August 2009
 
The Liberal Lion

(The Lion on one of his Good Days)
 
The subject of the moment- the culmination of a life- is what smacked me as I padded around the kitchen. The door to the balcony was opened immediately, and with the first gray light, he heavy equipment is knocking down the main structure of the Buckingham garden apartment block over on Henderson.
 
It was appropriate that the grinding of the bulldozers mixed with a peroration about the life of Senator Ted Kennedy when I groggily pushed in the button to start the torrent of information that comes with the working day.
 
I knew it immediately, though losing someone that anchored so much of my life still comes with an air of unreality. I did not have to see the banner headline on the web browser to realize what had happened. The Senator had expired at 77, even as we partied on the Odyssey river-boat on the Potomac to honor the completion of my pal the Admiral’s 90th year.
 
I have some great pictures of the event, which we can talk about tomorrow.
 
Construction of the luxury row houses that the County permitted in exchange for the massive new pair of buildings across the parking lot has flagged. The intention was to have the neighborhood fully transformed by now. The bursting of the bubble cut that short, and after the model module was completed, only one additional timid row was thrown up.
 
Not so with the other half of the apartment building development, grandly titled in full The Madison at Ballston Station. There is a social agenda associated with that, after all, and it is full speed ahead on that.
 
I think Senator Kennedy would have approved of the plan to force the legitimate owners of the Buckingham property to erect partially government-subsidized housing, even if their inclination was to exercise what used to be a fundamental right. He made a career of using the government to force other people to do things that he didn’t have to.
 
I always thought he could have served the people of Massachusetts admirably as an absentee legislator from a jail-cell. It always has bothered me that he walked away from what should have been first-degree manslaughter to become the Liberal Lion of the Senate.
 
They say not to speak ill of the dead, and so I won’t. The last time I saw the Senator in person, his dogs Sunny and Splash were blocking the door out of the Senate Russell Building. The Mercury Nautica mini-van was pulled up, waiting at the curb, and we waited politely for the staffers to untangle the leashes and get the pair of Portuguese water dogs into the sliding door.
 
The dogs had quite a life. They wandered the halls of Congress most days, spending the summer recess on Cape Cod, and playing ball with the Lion of the Senate.
 
Splash was supposed to be the faster runner, while Sunny was the stronger swimmer.
 
Normally only working dogs are permitted in public buildings, but Sunny and Splash could normally be e found under the senator's desk, and consequently were present at many important meetings.
 
"Splash sat through the markup for the No Child Left Behind Bill," the Senator observed a few years ago.
 
So, let’s leave the epitome of the Baby Boom, to his legacy. He had to labor in the long shadow of his higher-flying brothers. There was never an issue on which the Senator could not be relied upon to take a loony progressive position.
 
I would prefer to remember him in his Senate office with his dogs than heroically- though futilly- diving on the submerged car in the tidal pond near the bridge. I think that was the story. It is hard to tell all these years later.
 
Still, the description of him in the trial of one of the younger members of the clan may be the one that stays with me.
 
Remember? William Kennedy Smith was accused of raping a girl at the family estate in Palm Beach after a night of cocktails at Annz and Au Bar. William and his running mate Patrick Kennedy brought a couple of women back with them. The couples separated on the compound, Patrick pairing up with a waitress named Michelle Cassone, while William walked down to the ocean with Patricia Bowman.
 
Patrick is a Congressman now. I visited him in his office one time, before the prescription drug thing got him in trouble with the Capitol Hill Police.
 
Anyway, William and Patricia were out there by the ocean on their own voyage into notoriety when Senator Kennedy walked into the room where Patrick was chatting with Michelle. The Liberal Lion was without his trousers and sporting only a long-tailed Brooks Brothers shirt, a brand I have always admired.
 
That was the Senator’s last walk-on roll in someone else’s criminal activity, and he has been on track for sainthood ever since.
 
After much travail, young William Kennedy Smith beat the rap, too, though the trial was pretty spectacular. It is a family tradition.
 
Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com