New leader must fill Teddy's shoes

At the dawning of a new day we received the news that Edward M. Kennedy, the Lion of the Senate, in his 47th year of service from the state of Massachusetts, had died. Teddy, as most who knew him who affectionately called him, perhaps, capped the legacy and laid the keystone of the Kennedy name known all around the world. He was literally the visionary, the Patron Saint, preventing the onset of the human tragedy by standing up against the onrush of imminent Lost Causes. Yes, he was devoutly liberal.

But in the word, he envisioned liberty and freedom as a right rather than a privilege. He defined the word as the essence of our spiritual being and not as a differentiation between political philosophies. Tirelessly, doggedly, and with purpose, he fought from the heart and no one doubted it. And now his work has ended.

It's time now for someone else to inflame our passions and drive us forward, to ignite once again what it is to be united and uniquely American, in all of us.

James D. Cook

Streamwood