And Still They Rise

What more is there to say about the Kennedys? Since their story is the defining one of the Irish in America, and of all immigrants who have come to these shores before and since, there's still quite a lot. In the documentary The Kennedys: Americas Emerald Kings, director Robert Klein lifts the veil on the famous clan. This week he talks to CAHIR O'DOHERTY about the continuing relevance of Irish America's first family.

IN 1968 Robert F. Kennedy gave a speech to the radio program Voice of America. Despite all the challenges facing the nation in that tumultuous year he was optimistic, he said. Never mind what was going on down in Alabama. Political progress was being made. It was inevitable.

Then, in an extraordinary moment Bobby Kennedy said this: "Things are moving so fast in race relations, a Negro could be president in 40 years." Kennedy was speaking in 1968. It's now in 2008, and we've just elected Barack Obama to the White House.

"There's no question about it," Kennedy said. "In the next 40 years a Negro can achieve the same position that my brother had."

The term Negro has not aged well, but Kennedy's political instincts certainly have, and his awareness of the time it takes for change to occur was flawless. It's those sharp political instincts and an abundant faith in progress - even in the face of setbacks - that have kept the Irish American first family in the headlines and at the forefront of Democratic politics for generations now.

True to form, this year the Kennedys have also been at the forefront of President-elect Obama's campaign too. Senator Edward Kennedy's decision to rally to Obama's cause raised eyebrows among senior Democratic strategists and was derided at the time as sentimentality, but he had the last laugh.

Kennedy's endorsement of the junior senator from Illinois is now considered a defining moment in the 2008 campaign, as was his niece Caroline Kennedy's announcement in The New York Times that Obama would be a president like her father.

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Nster.com