Obama: Kennedy was 'soul of the Democratic Party'

BOSTON — President Barack Obama has saluted Sen. Edward Kennedy for surmounting pain and suffering to become a family patriarch and personification of American legislator.

Eulogizing the 77-year-old Kennedy, who died Tuesday, Obama called the senator "the soul of the Democratic Party" and said that in his personal life, he lived up the expectations as "the heir to a weighty legacy."

Obama led some 1,500 people, including three former presidents, at a funeral Mass for Kennedy at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basicala in Kennedy's beloved Boston. He said the senator handled life's challenges with a "spirit of resilience and good humor."

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BOSTON (AP) — President Barack Obama led the nation and a church filled with mourners Saturday in remembering "the greatest legislator of our time," celebrating the indelible impact of Edward M. Kennedy over a 47-year Senate career and his role as patriarch of America's most famous family during tragedy and triumph.

Delivering an emotional, simple eulogy for Kennedy that capped a two-hour Roman Catholic funeral Mass, Obama employed humor, his own experiences and timeless anecdotes to memorialize the senator, who died Tuesday at 77 after battling brain cancer for more than a year. The country may have viewed him as "heir to a weighty legacy," Obama said, but he was playfully known by the youngest Kennedys less grandly: as the big cheese, "The Grand Fromage."

"Ted Kennedy's life's work was not to champion those with wealth or power or special connections," Obama said. "It was to give a voice to those who were not heard; to add a rung to the ladder of opportunity, to make real the dream of our founding."

The president said that "though it is Ted Kennedy's historic body of achievements we will remember, it is his giving heart that we will miss."

The service drew to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica three of the four living former presidents, dozens of Kennedy relatives, pews full of current and former members of Congress and hundreds of others affected by the senator in ways large and small. No fewer than seven priests, 11 pallbearers and 29 honorary pallbearers took part. Mournful performances came from tenor Placido Domingo and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.