Kennedy: Obama can restore America's world standing (1st Lead)

Jan 28, 2008, 20:26 GMT

Washington - Members of America's prominent Kennedy family Monday backed Senator Barack Obama in his bid for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, speaking of their hope for the healing of the country's tarnished world standing.

Senator Edward Kennedy, the icon of the US left who has strong support from labour unions and Hispanics, held the attention of cheering young people at American University in the nation's capital for nearly half an hour.

The endorsement by Senator Kennedy and his niece, Caroline Kennedy, the last surviving child of assassinated president John F Kennedy, has stirred excitement and controversy in the bitter struggle for the centre-left party's nomination.

It comes nearly a week before the massive primary elections on February 5, when voters in more than 20 states are to choose their presidential nominees. In opinion polls, Obama's chief rival, Senator Hillary Clinton, the one-time first lady, leads by about 10 per cent nationwide over Obama.

In a barb aimed squarely at Clinton and her initial support for the war in Iraq, Kennedy said: 'When so many others were silent, from the beginning he opposed the war in Iraq.'

Kennedy also tackled Clinton's criticism of Obama that he lacks her lengthy experience in government, saying he knew Obama, 46, was 'ready to be president on day one.'

'When he raises his hand on inauguration day, at that very moment we will lift the spirits of our nation and begin to restore America's standing in the world,' Kennedy said.

The crowd chanted 'Obama' and 'Yes we can' - the Obama campaign motto. Also on stage was Congressman Patrick Kennedy, 40, the senator's son.

The two most prominent Kennedys were turning their back on the Clintons, who are regarded as the nation's second most important Democratic family and who cultivated the Kennedys' support during Bill Clinton's 1993-2001 presidency.

Several other members of the Kennedy clan have endorsed Clinton, including Ethel Kennedy, widow of JFK's assassinated brother, Robert, who was mowed down while seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968, and Robert's daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland.

Senator Edward 'Teddy' Kennedy, 75, the most prominent surviving member of the family, unsuccessfully sought the centre-left Democratic nomination in 1980, but became bogged down in the legacy of the fatal 1969 accident at Chappaquiddick, Massachussetts, that claimed the life of a woman passenger in a car he drove off a bridge.

Kennedy swam to safety but the woman drowned, and Kennedy later pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of the accident.

Nonetheless, his influence remains huge on the US political scene, where he has used his 45-year seniority in the senate to protect the disenfranchised and advocate for the elderly, disabled, immigrants, workers and civil rights.

Caroline Kennedy, 50, and the senator made frequent references to JFK and Robert Kennedy, noting that JFK had used American University to announce his June 1963 unilateral test ban on nuclear weapons in the Western Hemisphere, and his plans to meet with then-Soviet prime minister Nikita Khrushchev to discuss a global ban.

The Obama endorsement - Caroline took the first step with an essay in Sunday's New York Times - clinched the frequent comparisons drawn by supporters and pundits between Obama and JFK.

Both Kennedys said they believed Obama could inspire people from all walks of life to move the country beyond the 'divisions of the past.' Caroline noted that her teenage children were 'the first to make me realize Barack Obama is the president we need.'

'He is already inspiring Americans young and old to ideals of hope, justice, opportunity and peace, and urging us to imagine that together we can do great things,' she said.

Senator Kennedy said that Obama represented the 'hope for America that is yet to be' - just as his brother, JFK, had done with his New Frontier programme that challenged young people in 1961 to take rockets to the moon and volunteer through the Peace Corps.

'What counts in our leadership is not the length of years in Washington but the reach of our vision, the strength of our beliefs and that rare quality of mind and spirit that can call forth the best in our country and best in the world,' Kennedy said.

'With Barack Obama, we will end the war in Iraq that he has always stood against ... a war Americans never should have fought,' Kennedy said.

Kennedy has been a major critic of the war and the associated human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba and through harsh interrogation techniques of foreign prisoners that have been tolerated by the White House of Republican President George W Bush.