Much to my relief, the news reports do not paint a saintly portrait of Ted Kennedy. 

Sen. Kennedy was an effective legislator and a champion of causes important to those not born into wealth.  He was a complicated man from a complicated family.  He lost three brothers violently.  First, Joe in the carnage of WWII, followed by John and Bobby by assassination.  He drank.  He left a woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, to die in the water when he drove his car off a bridge.  His personal life seemed out of control, until the 1990s. 

People are complicated.  When they die, they don’t shed the complexity.  Their deaths force us to contemplate the messy wholes that don’t fit well into eulogies.

Elie Wiesel once said that only a victim can forgive his tormentor.  He is right.  We can laud Sen. Kennedy for all he did to make our nation a more perfect union, but only the Kopechnes can tell us whether on balance his good deeds outweighed his failings. 

For me, I hope he rests in peace.