Obama: Kennedy Was "The Greatest Legislator of Our Time"
"The greatest expectations were placed upon Ted Kennedy's shoulders because of who he was, but he surpassed them all because of who he became," Mr. Obama said. "We do not weep for him today because of the prestige attached to his name or his office. We weep because we loved this kind and tender hero who persevered through pain and tragedy – not for the sake of ambition or vanity; not for wealth or power; but only for the people and the country he loved."
After writing more than 300 laws and dedicating himself to nearly 1,000 that now bear his name, the president said, Kennedy "became the greatest legislator of our time...by hewing to principle, but also by seeking compromise and common cause – not through deal-making and horse-trading alone, but through friendship, and kindness, and humor."
Mr. Obama called Kennedy "the heir to a weighty legacy; a champion for those who had none; the soul of the Democratic Party; and the lion of the U.S. Senate."
(Read the president's full remarks here.)
The senator, though, was also known as a father, brother, husband, uncle and friend, the president said -- and was known as "The Big Cheese" to younger nieces and nephews.
"Ted Kennedy was the baby of the family who became its patriarch; the restless dreamer who became its rock," Mr. Obama said.
He noted the great tragedies that marked Kennedy's life: the loss of two siblings before Ted Kennedy turned 16, the loss of two more to assassination, the recent loss of his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, surviving a plane crash, watching two children struggle with cancer, burying three nephews and experiencing personal failings in the public eye. The president said Kennedy's resilience and good humor saw him through such hard times.
"It is a string of events that would have broken a lesser man," Mr. Obama said. "And it would have been easy for Teddy to let himself become bitter and hardened; to surrender to self-pity and regret; to retreat from public life and live out his years in peaceful quiet. No one would have blamed him for that. But that was not Ted Kennedy."
The senator, Mr. Obama said, was attuned to others' suffering and made it his life's work to help those in need.
CBSNews.com's complete coverage of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's life and death
Kennedy worked "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. "He was given the gift of time that his brothers were not, and he used that gift to touch as many lives and right as many wrongs as the years would allow."
The senator, the president related, personally called and stayed in touch with each of the 177 Massachusetts families who lost a loved one in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He worked to get them grief counseling, and he invited them sailing. He would write each family a letter on the anniversary of the attacks.
"And yet," Mr. Obama said, "while his causes became deeply personal, his disagreements never did. He was a product of an age when the joy and nobility of politics prevented differences of party and philosophy from becoming barriers to cooperation and mutual respect – a time when adversaries still saw each other as patriots."
Read more stories on Sen. Kennedy's life and death at CBSNews.com:
Barack Obama's Eulogy for Ted Kennedy
Locals Share in Mourning of Kennedy
Photos: A Final Farewell
Photos: Funeral Honors Kennedy's Legacy
A Farewell to Edward Kennedy
Family, Political Luminaries Honor Kennedy
Photos: The Scene at the JFK Library Memorial
Photos: Speakers Pay Tribute to Kennedy