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BOSTON: Legendary Democratic Party patriarch Senator
Edward Kennedy has a malignant brain tumor, doctors said, sending a
wave of sadness and shock through the US political establishment.
The 76-year-old liberal lion’s
cancer diagnosis, days after he was airlifted to a Boston hospital
following a seizure, cast a pall over Congress, where the
Massachusetts senator has been a dominant figure for nearly half a
century.
“Preliminary results from a
biopsy of the brain identified the cause of the seizure as a
malignant glioma in the left parietal lobe,” physicians Lee
Schwamm and Larry Ronan said in a statement Tuesday (Wednesday in
Manila).
Normal treatment for such a
condition is radiation and chemotherapy, the doctors said, adding
that Kennedy, sole surviving brother of assassinated President John
F. Kennedy and former US Attorney General Robert Francis Kennedy,
was in “good spirits and full of energy.”
Schwamm, vice chairman of
Massachusetts General Hospital’s neurology department, and Ronan,
a primary care physician, said more analysis and tests were needed
to determine the best course of treatment.
The statement did not offer a
prognosis, but said Senator Kennedy, who has served with nine US
presidents, will remain in hospital for the next few days.
The US National Cancer Institute
reported the outlook with such a diagnosis is poor, with average
life expectancy depending on the stage of the tumor, from a few
months to up to five years.
The White House, and shocked US
lawmakers, quickly paid tribute to Kennedy, who has steered his
political dynasty through repeated tragedy, carved out a political
legend in the Senate, but been reviled by some conservatives.
“Ted Kennedy is a man of
tremendous courage, remarkable strength, and powerful spirit,”
President George W. Bush said in a statement.
“Our thoughts are with Senator
Kennedy and his family during this difficult period. We join our
fellow Americans in praying for his full recovery.”
Democratic presidential hopeful
Barack Obama, to whom Kennedy symbolically passed the torch of
idealism earlier this year with his endorsement, described the
senator as a giant of the Democratic Party and American politics.
“I might not be in the Senate
had it not been for him, because of the battles he fought for voting
rights and civil rights early in his career,” Obama said on the
American television network MSNBC.
“When he gets on that stage,
it’s magic, and that voice comes out from deep inside him and he
starts winding up, and you know, you can feel history coursing
through him.”
Obama’s Democratic foe, Hillary
Clinton, who was stung that Kennedy did not endorse her, said she
was praying for a quick and full recovery.
Republican presidential
candidate, Senator John McCain, a survivor of skin cancer, offered a
warm tribute from across the aisle.
“I have described Ted Kennedy
as the last lion in the Senate, and I have held that view because he
remains the single most effective member of the Senate.”
The most emotional comments came
from 90-year-old Senator Robert Byrd, the only man currently in the
Senate who has served longer than Kennedy.
“Ted, my dear friend, I love
you, and I miss you ... thank God for you, Ted. Thank God for
you.”
Kennedy is an unapologetic
liberal and an orator who recalls a bygone era of stem-winding
political rhetoric, but has reached out to work with Republicans.
He is a champion of causes, such
as health care, education, workers rights and immigration reform,
and has been a fierce Bush critic.
Kennedy, whose eighth term in the
Senate expires in 2012, was once the heir apparent of his political
dynasty, and apparently destined for the White House.
But his career was rocked by the
death of a young woman, Mary Joe Kopechne, in his car late one night
in 1969 after he drove it off a bridge near Chappaquiddick island
off the US east coast.
He did run for president in 1980
against incumbent Jimmy Carter. Kennedy lost the Democratic
nomination, but managed to harm the sitting US president’s
re-election hopes. Carter lost the general election to Ronald
Reagan.
Kennedy’s latest health scare
came six months after he had surgery to clear a blockage in a major
neck artery, a common procedure to prevent a stroke.
John F. Kennedy was assassinated
in 1963, and brother Robert Kennedy was shot dead while campaigning
for the presidency in 1968.
Joseph, the eldest brother, died
in a plane crash during World War II.
--AFP
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