- [Speaker 1] What is a senator?

1% of one-half of one of the three branches of government.

Unless, of course, you're Mr. Moynihan.

(light music) His life was one of the broadest and deepest public careers in American history.

(light music) - [Narrator] Politician, social philosopher, and statesman, Daniel Patrick Moynihan's wide ranging influence can still be felt today.

- [Speaker 2] I don't think you get many people in public life who have this kind of unique insight.

From highway safety, to welfare.

- [Speaker 3] Social and family policy.

- [Speaker 2] United Nations.

- [Speaker 1] Infrastructure.

- [Speaker 3] Public architecture, secrecy in government.

- [Narrator] In the last half of the 20th century, Daniel Patrick Moynihan was at the center of America's most urgent political debates.

- Equality and liberty are two different things.

- [Narrator] He served four consecutive presidents and was elected to four terms in the Senate.

It all began with his fight for America's poor.

- Things are not getting better for everybody.

There's a group of Americans for whom things get worse.

- I certainly have memories of when the Moynihan report exploded into controversy.

- [Narrator] He rose to national celebrity as America's most famous representative to the United Nations.

- One word that's attached to you wherever you go until you're probably sick to death of it is flamboyant.

The flamboyant Patrick Moynihan.

- Am I embarrassed to speak for a less than perfect democracy?

Not one bit.

Find me a better one.

(light music) - He was a man shaped by The Depression.

He saw government do an enormous amount of good.

- [Speaker 4] He was always a liberal who knew that liberalism thrived only when it could question itself.

- Moynihan hated the notion that government is the problem.

His own rejoinder to that was, if you have contempt for government, you will get contemptible government.

(uptempo music) - There's no doubt in my mind that if Pat Moynihan had been airdropped into New England in the 1770s, he would've been one of the most prominent members of our Founding Fathers.

(light theatrical music) - [Moynihan] The great challenges of our time have been challenges of ideas.

Politics is an argument about the future.

(theatrical music) (air swooshes)