In the 1980s, among the tricks that genial showman Ronald Reagan played on America was making “liberal” a dirty word and a dirtier occupation.

When the stampede of paper liberals to the middle of the road was over, only a few unabashed liberals were left standing. Chief among them was Teddy Kennedy. Any progress America has made toward full justice and equality for all since then must be credited, in large part, to him.

Today, when news came that Senator Kennedy has been diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor, his colleagues in the Senate – Democrats and Republicans – were undone. Several Senators wept. Some called him “the lion of the Senate.” Others said that he had played a central role in crafting and passing all the important legislation of the last 50 years.

For five decades, Senator Kennedy has represented the people of Massachusetts, but his natural constituents have always been the most vulnerable Americans – the disenfranchised, the poor, the elderly, the infirm, children. immigrants.

He has been their voice, their champion, and he has been our conscience. And he is indispensable.

Yale scholar Harold Bloom has said that Shakespeare invented human beings. If that is true, and I believe it is, then the Kennedy family has perfected this most idiosyncratic species. By that I do not mean that the Kennedys are perfect, but that they are fully human – in all the infinite permutations that suggests.

That is their burden, and our blessing.