Sixteen years ago, the most illustrious members of the Kennedy clan gathered on a stage at American University and bestowed their benediction on a first-term senator from Illinois who was running for the Democratic presidential nomination as an underdog against the establishment favorite. “I feel change in the air. What about you?” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) thundered before an electrified crowd of thousands. Alongside the family patriarch was his son Patrick (then a Democratic congressman from Rhode Island) and his niece Caroline, who the day before had declared in a New York Times op-ed that then-Sen. Barack Obama would be “a president like my father.”

Take a moment to think about how much has changed for the family since 2008. What struck me most then was the sight of the preternaturally composed Obama, moments before the event, choking back his tears. His own father had come to this country from Kenya as part of a program assisted by the Kennedy family foundation.

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