I'll confess at the top that I like Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and there are some things about him that I even admire.
I admire his work ethic - his tireless campaigns on behalf of people and their causes that are increasingly less important to a decreasingly empathetic nation.
I admire the way he treats his staff, the way he has assembled the most respected collection of policy aides on Capitol Hill.
I admire the way he consistently glides above the fray of the bitter, partisan politics that characterizes modern-day Washington, the way he seeks compromise with Republican counterparts like Senator Orrin Hatch.
I admire the way he has carried the cross of his famous family across decades and tragedies to explore territory - middle age, and now older age - that none of his brothers ever saw.
But amid this admiration, Kennedy suddenly takes part in a series of interviews aired on ''60 Minutes II'' last week in what can only be viewed as a pathetic pursuit of pity, and you have to wonder what it all really means.
What does it mean that the reigning member of the nation's most chronicled family feels the need to quiver in tears on prime-time television? What does it mean that Edward Kennedy, the last liberal lion, feels the need to sing songs for reporter Gloria Borger, to all but break out in a soft-shoe routine?
What does it mean that one of the most dominant senators in the history of our republic feels the need to cooperate for an entire segment that speaks to none of his issues, goals, or accomplishments, but of his family and its tragedies?
''You know you have no alternative but to continue on, so you do,'' he says on the air, his eyes misty. At other points, he waves away questions because his voice is choked by tears.
In many ways, it's not always easy to be Ted Kennedy. His weight, his entire appearance, is constantly lampooned by two-bit comedians who see none of the reality that this is what a Kennedy looks like after the glamour of youth has worn off.
He is the caretaker of a family legacy that is despised by a good portion of America. He saw his own presidential ambitions - some would say destiny - washed away when he crashed his car off that Martha's Vineyard bridge and failed to rescue his dying passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne.
He has witnessed almost unspeakable tragedy over the course of his public and private lives - two brothers dead by gunshot, another killed in war, a sister gone in a plane crash, a son struck by cancer, three nephews felled by suicide or accidents.
His immense faults and absurd appetites in a life of unfailing privilege have been laid bare for a country to see. In short, he could never be the hero that we wanted to believe his brothers were.
But throughout, I've always believed that the older he got, the more he lived his public life on the power of his ideas, while remaining the uncle with the steady, guiding hand.
Other, younger Kennedys basked in the aura of celebrity that is bestowed on them at birth. Ted Kennedy, always charming, seemed to increasingly view his name as a call to action, a chance to make the kind of enduring mark that few others in our history ever do.
On matters family, we heard from him not in interviews, but from the pulpit at too many funerals for his fallen kin or in stolen glimpses of private moments.
Recall how Ted Kennedy appeared at the Long Island home of his niece, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, last July amid the vigil for John Kennedy Jr. He stripped off his shirt and played a loud game of basketball with her three children in the driveway, all away from the glare of cameras. Recall, too, his remarkably poignant eulogy of John Kennedy Jr. a few days later, when he said of his most famous nephew, ''He accepted who he was, but he cared more about what he could and should become.''
Which is why his decision 10 months later to shed tears for his family on ''60 Minutes'' is so disappointing, even demeaning.
Could it mean that his causes aren't the driving force, that helping his family through crisis isn't enough?
Could it mean that the Kennedys, the senator included, encourage the kind of tabloid publicity and popular following that the family pretends to despise? Could it mean that the Kennedys need that attention to be, well, the Kennedys?
The patriarch should dry his eyes and do what he does best, which is push a cause that is something other than himself.
Brian McGrory's e-mail address is mcgrory@globe.com.
