Senior Bushes Will Skip Kennedy Funeral

(NEWSER) - All four living former presidents will attend Ted Kennedy’s invitation-only funeral, the Boston Herald reports. President Obama will also be there, breaking off his Martha’s Vineyard vacation to deliver a eulogy. Gordon Brown also plans to attend, as will Irish PM Brian Cowen. “Sen. Kennedy is being honored as though he were a former sitting president,” observed one political scientist. More»

(AP) - Ted Kennedy received a final tribute today befitting his huge profile on the American political scene. President Obama, three former presidents, dozens of congressmen past and present, and celebrities ranging from Jack Nicholson to Tony Bennett attended the funeral at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston. Placido Domingo and Yo-Yo Ma performed during the two-hour service, which also featured younger Kennedys paying tribute to their late patriarch. (To see images, click on Slideshow, at left.) More»

(NEWSER) - Thousands more well-wishers flocked to the Kennedy Library in Boston today to pay their respects to Ted Kennedy, the Globe reports. Mourners stood in an eight-wide line that snaked back and forth throughout the parking lot. Among the mourners were several state lawmakers, a group from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and noted Republican activist Polly Logan. More»

(NEWSER) - Thousands of constituents and admirers turned out this afternoon to honor Ted Kennedy as a motorcade bearing the senator's body from his Cape Cod home to his brother's presidential library wound through the streets of Boston. Some wept, some applauded as both locals and out-of-towners flooded to say goodbye. "We’re his family,” one Bostonian told the Globe. “We loved him so much, and we’ll miss him so much." More»

(NEWSER) - President Obama paid homage to the "greatest legislator of our time" today in his eulogy of Ted Kennedy—"the baby of the family who became its patriarch, the restless dreamer who became its rock." He ticked off the personal and public tragedies of Kennedy's life, "a string of events that would have broken a lesser man," CBS reports. "But that was not Ted Kennedy." More»