Sen. Ted Kennedy will be buried Saturday at Arlington National Cemetery after a private funeral Mass.
The senator’s funeral is scheduled for Saturday at Boston’s Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston’s Mission Hill section. Dozens of Kennedy’s fellow senators are scheduled to attend as well as three former presidents — Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. President Obama, who called Kennedy the “greatest U.S. senator of our time,” will deliver a eulogy at the funeral, according to several sources. Prime Minister Brian Cowen of Ireland, the Kennedy ancestral homeland, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are also expected to attend, a family spokesman said. Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening at Arlington National Cemetery, outside Washington, 95 feet south of the grave of Sen. Robert Kennedy, which is in turn just steps away from John Kennedy’s burial site. Friends, family and colleagues paid tribute to Kennedy on Friday evening with a three-hour wake at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Earlier, thousands of people filed past his flag-draped casket that had been at the library since Thursday afternoon.
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Dubbed the “Lion of the Senate,” Kennedy died Tuesday after being ill with brain cancer for 15 months. The 77-year-old senator had represented Massachusetts since 1962. He became the patriarch of the first family of Democratic politics after the assassinations of his brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, during the 1960s. Kennedy was famous for his close friendships with colleagues across the Senate aisle. Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch said the Kennedy name was “my very best fundraiser,” but that he developed “a strong working relationship with and love for the man I came to fight.” Watch Hatch tell how he won a big favor from Kennedy »
A Celebration of Life
CNN covers the life and death of Sen. Ted Kennedy, including the the funeral and burial Saturday.
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Arizona Sen. John McCain, the GOP’s 2008 presidential candidate, said Kennedy “taught me to be a better senator.” “He was the most reliable, the most prepared and the most persistent member of the Senate,” McCain said. “He took the long view, and he never gave up.”
Arizona Sen. John McCain, the GOP’s 2008 presidential candidate, said Kennedy “taught me to be a better senator.” “He was the most reliable, the most prepared and the most persistent member of the Senate,” McCain said. “He took the long view, and he never gave up.”
