The Lion's Funeral

President Obama delivered Ted Kennedy's eulogy today, and Presidents, family and others paid their respects in Boston, including his son Ted Jr.

President Obama hailed Sen. Edward M. Kennedy as "a champion for those who had none; the soul of the Democratic Party; and the lion of the U.S. Senate," at Kennedy's funeral Saturday.

Kennedy "never stopped trying to right wrongs," his son Ted Jr. declared at the towering Washington figure's funeral Mass Saturday at Boston's Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica -- Boston's famed "Mission Church."

"My father was not perfect, but he believed in redemption," he said.

"Although it hasn't been easy at times to live with this name, I have never been more proud of it than I am today," Ted Jr. said.

He said his father had made light of his failure to become president, despite the weight of expectations on him as a Kennedy.

"I don't mind not being president, I just mind that someone else is," he quoted his father as saying, closing his eulogy with a line from Kennedy's famous 1980 concession speech that ended his presidential ambitions: "The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream will never die."

The Senate will miss Kennedy. Despite however you felt about the man personally, he was greatly respected and had over four decades of legislative service to the country. Lawmakers like Kennedy are in rather short supply on both sides of the aisle.

Today's hyper-partisan, win at all costs Senate is a much more grim and unyielding place, and it will only get worse. Notably absent from the funeral was Poppy Bush, who let his son represent the Bush family at the proceedings.

That's classy for you.