Obama, McCain, Biden helped open Edward Kennedy Institute in Boston
President Barack Obama came to Boston for the dedication of a museum that was the vision of the late Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy.
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WASHINGTON, March 30 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama will visit the country of his father's birth in July to attend a global business summit, the White House announced Monday.
Obama will make the trip to Kenya in July to attend the sixth Global Entrepreneurship Summit, the event he launched in 2009 to facilitate innovation and improve bilateral relations between Africa and the U.S. government.
More than 1,000 entrepreneurs and investors from around the world are expected to attend the summit, the White House said Monday.
"This year's Summit in Kenya will have an overarching focus on generating new investments in entrepreneurs, particularly women and young entrepreneurs," the White House said in a statement. "Choosing Kenya as the destination for GES underscores the fact that Africa, and Kenya in particular, has become a center for innovation and entrepreneurship."
In addition to its business significance, Kenya is also a nation of pride for Obama's heritage. His father was born there and Obama has visited the country before. July's trip will be Obama's fourth to sub-Saharan Africa since he took office in 2009 -- the most for any sitting U.S. president.
Obama last visited Kenya in 2006, when he was a U.S. senator. His familial ties to the country and political instability there have made a presidential visit more complicated and highly anticipated.
"But now in his seventh year in office, Mr. Obama evidently has decided that he will absorb the inevitable chatter from those who persist in the unfounded belief that he was born there," the New York Times wrote Monday.
Obama's father, Barack Obama, Sr., is from the Nyanza Province in Kenya. July will be Obama's first trip to his father's homeland since he took office. One of Obama's first acts as president was signing a memorandum of understanding with the Kenyan government that allowed the African nation to prosecute pirates captured off the nation's coast.
Monday, the White House likened the president's upcoming visit to one made to Ireland by John F. Kennedy just a few months prior to his assassination.
"Just as President Kennedy's historic visit to Ireland in 1963 celebrated the connections between Irish-Americans and their forefathers, President Obama's trip will honor the strong historical ties between the United States and Kenya and all of Africa from the millions of Americans who trace their ancestry to the African continent, to the more than 100,000 Americans that live in or visit Kenya each year," the White House said.
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Obama to visit Kenya in July for first time as president
President Obama said Monday that American politicians in an era of partisanship should try to carry themselves more like Edward M. Kennedy, as politicians from both parties lauded the late senator's collegial spirit at the dedication of an institute that bears his name.
The $79 million institute, built next to the John F. Kennedy presidential library on Boston's Columbia Point, envisioned by Kennedy before he was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2008. He died the following year.
Obama said it was appropriate for Kennedy to want "a monument not to himself but to what we the people have the power to do together." He said he hoped the institute could help restore confidence in government at a time of great cynicism, giving a young student a chance to debate in its full-scale replica of the Senate chamber.
"What if our politics, our democracy, were as elevated as he envisions it to be?" Obama said. Instead, he said citizens are cynical about government and disgusted by politicians' trivial pursuits and grandstanding for "cameras instead of colleagues."
"Fear so permeates our politics instead of hope. People fight to get in the Senate only to get afraid," the president told some 1,800 Kennedy friends, family and politicians from both parties gathered for the dedication. He said Kennedy was never afraid to compromise with Republicans, even if it would anger his supporters.
"What if we carried ourselves more like Ted Kennedy?" Obama asked.
Speaker after speaker spoke of Kennedy's outsized influence on the Senate, where he served for 47 years, and held his consensus-building up in contrast to the gridlock that has become the hallmark of the modern Congress.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain remembered Kennedy's "zest for political argument" and said they would often laugh together after fighting on the Senate floor. He said the Senate hasn't been the same without him. "That's mostly for reasons unrelated to losing Ted, but I have no doubt the place would be a little more productive and a lot more fun if he were there," McCain said.
"I miss fighting with him to be honest. It's gotten harder to find people who enjoy a good fight as much as Ted did," McCain said to laughter.
Vice President Joe Biden said Kennedy "treated me like a little brother" when Biden first arrived in 1973, helping him land choice committee assignments not generally available to freshmen senators. He said Kennedy introduced him around the Senate and was a master at generating trust and mutual respect.
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Obama honors late Sen. Kennedy at institute dedication
President Barack Obama lamented the increasingly partisan nature of Congressional politics and called on leaders in Washington to follow the example set by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy during the dedication of an institute named for the "liberal lion" on Monday.
Obama headlined a bipartisan group of politicians celebrating the opening of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate in Boston. The president and Vice President Joe Biden were joined by Republicans like Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Senate GOP Leader Trent Lott.
The speakers reflected on Kennedy's life while also fondly recalling the ways Congress used to operate.
"Ted grieved the loss of camaraderie and collegiality, the face-to-face interaction," Obama said. "I think he regretted the arguments now made to cameras instead of colleagues."
"It all leads more Americans to turn away in disgust," he added.
The $79 million institute, which was built next to John F. Kennedy's presidential library, features a full-size replica of the Senate chamber. Kennedy spent 47 years in the Senate and thought up the institute before his death in 2009. The goal is to help restore public faith in an institution that the public has little confidence in.
"This is not the time for me to suggest a slew of ideas for reform, although I do have some," Obama said. "Maybe I'll just mention one. What if we carried ourselves more like Ted Kennedy? What if we worked to follow his example a little bit harder?"
McCain, who like Kennedy is known for his feisty temperament, said he misses the battles he had with the Massachusetts Democrat.
"I have no doubt the place would be a little more productive and a lot more fun if he were there," McCain said.
-- Andrew Rafferty
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Obama Urges Congress to Follow Ted Kennedy's Example