Teddy the Workhorse

Senator Ted Kennedy didn't let a little thing like terminal brain cancer stop him. According to The Washington Post, Kennedy worked on many projects right up until the end of his life. He was determined to finish his memoir True Compass, written with his longtime wordsmith Bob Shrum, which will be published Sept. 14. He talked health care during his final 15 months when Chris Dodd came twice for dinner as well as when the president called from Rome in July to say he'd delivered a letter from Kennedy to the Pope. As Kennedy put it, he was trying to ensure that "when there is a cure for the disease I now have, no American who needs it will be denied it." He also prided himself on his near-perfect attendance at board meetings for Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, calling in to meetings when doctors concluded that it wasn't safe for him to attend, due to the swine-flu threat.