Without Kennedy, Senate quieter, emptier

By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Without its most powerful orator and liberal giant, the U.S. Senate was suddenly quieter and emptier on Wednesday.

"We don't have the roar on the floor," Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey said of Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. "His legislative gravitas moves issues. You feel the vacuum."

No one was certain when Kennedy, first hospitalized on Saturday, would return to work while he battles a malignant brain tumor diagnosed on Tuesday.

Yet colleagues quickly sensed the void from the absence of the 76-year-old Democratic icon, one of the chamber's most effective legislators and skilled dealmakers.

"When Ted leads the debate on the Senate floor, it's almost magically," said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

"We all like him because he's not a milquetoast," Graham said. "He's passionate. He can go out there and yell and hurt your ears, but when it's over go buy you a beer."

A leading foe of the Iraq war, Kennedy had been certain to be a key voice on Wednesday when the Senate took up legislation to fund the unpopular conflict another year. Instead, senators offered him words of praise and prayer.

"I want Senator Kennedy to know that all of us here are pulling for him," said Sen. Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat.

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a longtime Kennedy friend, said, "I just wonder how the Senate is going to get along" without him, even for just a week or two.

As his Senate colleagues lamented Kennedy's absence, President George W. Bush signed a law pushed by him that prohibits discrimination against anyone whose genetic information shows a predisposition to illnesses such as cancer or heart disease.

PAY HOMAGE

Bush said he wanted to pay homage to Kennedy "who has worked for over a decade to get this piece of legislation to a president's desk. All of us are so pleased that Senator Kennedy has gone home, and our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family."

Though Kennedy has won friends among Republicans and Democrats, he has long been one of America's most polarizing figures -- embraced by civil rights and labor groups yet scorned by business and conservative activists.

First elected to the Senate in 1962, Kennedy, whose older brother, President John Kennedy, was assassinated a year later, is the third longest serving senator ever.

The product of an Irish-American family of privilege and wealth, Kennedy has been a force for the downtrodden.