In pictures taken with family after a malignant tumor was discovered in his brain, Senator Edward Moore Kennedy wore a grin. It was a familiar, reassuring sight. Can he--or we--remember a time before he mastered the brave face? Ted Kennedy was 12 when he first attended a sibling's funeral. By age 36, he was the last of the four Kennedy brothers still standing. He has endured an awesome catalog of trials, humiliations, griefs, terrors and mortifications--always in public, always with his chin up.
To say that Kennedy has perfected this role is not to suggest that his grin is inauthentic. If...