Edward Kennedy is one of those “not quite” figures in America’s past, men of real significance in their time—Henry Clay, William Jennings Bryan, Adlai Stevenson, Nelson Rockefeller—who never could capture the ultimate prize. History tends to reward most of them with a generous last hurrah if not a reprise of “Hail to the Chief.”Kennedy died of a brain tumor at 77 in 2009 after serving in the U.S. Senate longer than all but three other men. Over nearly 47 years he was a prodigious legislator who proposed no fewer than 2,500...

Source: Wall Street Journal October 23, 2020 15:54 UTC