Very sad news, today...my heart broke when i saw the headline.

Ted Kennedy, the senior Senator from Massachusetts, liberal lion of the senate, and a personal hero of mine, has a brain tumor.

The average survival rate for patients with this kind of cancer is about 14 months with treatment.

Ted
has a history of being on the right side of every issue and cause I
care about. He is the standard bearer for the democratic party in a way
that only a senator from Massachusetts can be. I can't think of a
single issue on which Teddy's been on the wrong side. He just knows
where we need to go and where we need to be and he does his best, uses
all his political skill and passion to get us there.

This may
sound like a strange comparison, but in a lot of ways, Ted Kennedy
reminds me of Johnny Cash. Where Cash was a voice for the dispossessed
and the unrepresented and the undertrodden and the disillusioned, Ted
fought for those very same people in the Senate. It's safe to say that
Ted Kennedy, more than perhaps anyone else, is the voice of the
voiceless and a fighter for those who can't fight for themselves.

In 1980, Kennedy ran for president. Also in
1980, there was an epidemic called AIDS that was killing the gay
community and led to homophobia and outright bigotry. Ted Kennedy had
our backs, at a time when it was not only politically unpopular, but at
a time when our own government was ignoring the problems we faced. We
were invisible, and likely would have remained so if not for Ted.

From Bob Shrum's book: No Excuses, Concessions of a Serial Campaigner

Now
Edward Kennedy was facing another issue that was a matter of simple
justice. Would he oppose discrimination and support a measure of equal
treatment for gays? Kennedy said that when it was put that way, he
didn't see that he had any other choice. Kirk shook his head. Kennedy
responded: "Paul, look at it this way. It's the upside of my downside;
nobody thinks i have a self-interest."

On May 21, we were
driving toward a gay fund-raising event in the Hollywood Hills. The
sponsoring committee had 45 members, the majority of whom would die
from the then unknown disease of AIDS. AS we briefed Kennedy in the
limousine, he asked where Jim Foster was. Foster was a gay activist
from San Fransisco who'd kept the local Kennedy headquarters there open
with his own money and some off-the-books contributions when the
campaign had ordered offices across the country closed to save money
after the Iowa defeat. Told that Foster was on the bus with the press
and the rest of the staff, Kennedy asked, Why are you guys briefing me
instead of Jim? He ordered the motorcade to stop. Foster was plucked
from the back of the bus. I squeezed onto the jumpseat in the limo
alongside someone else, and Jim sat next to Kennedy as we reviewed the
questions the audience was likely to ask.

The national
headquarters had ordered the fund-raiser closed to the press. Foster
said this would be a problem for the gay community. Were we embarrassed
to be there? In the driveway outside the massive house, Kennedy ordered
the event open. If we let the reporters stand outside, they'd just
think-and write-that we believed there was something wrong with where
we were. During the Q and A period, Sheldon Andelson, the first openly
gay man on the Board of Regents of the University of California,
challenged Kennedy. Why had he come here to collect gay contributions
but been too afraid to let the press in? Kennedy, who would deliver
Andelson's eulogy a few years later, responded by asking him to turn
around and look at the balcony off the second floor, where we'd hastily
provided a place for reporters and cameras. Kennedy introduced him with
genuine gusto to several of the correspondents: "Sheldon, that's Cassie
Mackin from ABC News..."- and down the line he went. The crowd laughed
and applauded. (In the platform negotiations a month later, the
Carter campaign was willing to concede almost anything if Kennedy would
just agree to ax the gay rights plank. He would reject the offer
outright.)

Ted Kennedy, whatever else you want to
say about him, has long been on the side of progress and justice. He's
fought long and hard for working families, and health care, and equal
rights, and voting rights, and education and expanding opportunity to
participate in the American Dream. I wish him the best of luck and know
that he will face this fight with the same fire and dogged
determination he's brought to his long life of public service in the
Senate.