Obama hails ‘greatest legislator of our time’

THIS is an edited version of US President Barack Obama’s funeral speech: “Today we say goodbye to the youngest child of Rose and Joseph Kennedy.

The world will long remember their son Edward as the heir to a weighty legacy; a champion for those who had none; the soul of the Democratic party; and the lion of the US Senate – a man whose name graces nearly one thousand laws, and who penned more than 300 himself.

“Ted Kennedy was the baby of the family who became its patriarch; the restless dreamer who became its rock. He lost two siblings by the age of 16. He saw two more taken violently from the country that loved them. He said goodbye to his beloved sister, Eunice, in the final days of his own life. He narrowly survived a plane crash, watched two children struggle with cancer, buried three nephews, and experienced personal failings and setbacks in the most public way possible.