Posted on 07/30/2009 1:08:24 PM PDT by lbryce
The President announced today the 16 recipients of the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilan honor. The President praised the recipients for breaking down barriers and lifting up their fellow citizens: "These outstanding men and women represent an incredible diversity of backgrounds. Their tremendous accomplishments span fields from science to sports, from fine arts to foreign affairs. Yet they share one overarching trait: Each has been an agent of change. Each saw an imperfect world and set about improving it, often overcoming great obstacles along the way."
The awards will be presented on August 12. Here is a little bit about this year’s recipients: Nancy Goodman Brinker is the founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s leading breast cancer grassroots organization.
Pedro José Greer, Jr. is the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs and Florida International University School of Medicine. Stephen Hawking is an internationally-recognized theoretical physicist, and is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University.
Jack Kemp was a U.S. Congressman, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and Republican Nominee for Vice President in 1996. He died in May, 2009
Sen. Edward Kennedy is one of the longest-serving and greatest Senators of all time. He has worked tirelessly for health care reform over the last five decades.
Billie Jean Kingis known for winning the famous "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match, and championing gender equality issues not only in sports, but in all aspects of life.
Harvey Milk was the first openly gay elected official from a major city in the United States. He was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, and encouraged LGBT citizens to live their lives openly.
(Excerpt) Read more at whitehouse.gov ...
Wow, this isn’t a joke.
This is really going to embolden the gay folk whereby they will demand of the President to appoint both a homosexual AND a lesbian CZAR if he expects their support.
“The guy is 82 and is deserving of recognition.”
In his own field, yes. But come on, he’s just an actor. I can understand politicians recognizing other politicians. Their achievements are trivial as well, but like I said, it’s politicians handing out the awards. Likewise, let Hollywood honor Poitier. There’s no reason Washington has to.
Deserves to tried for murder.
Author of Durban I Gets Medal of Freedom
Posted By Jennifer Rubin On July 30, 2009 @ 1:49 PM In Contentions | Comments Disabled
Mary Robinson, U.N. Commissioner and former president of Ireland, is being awarded the Medal of Freedom by Obama. Well, isn’t that just dandy. Who is Mary Robinson? You may remember her role in presiding over the infamous Durban I Conference. At the time she joined Rashid Khalidi at Columbia University (no, you can’t make this up), [1] this report summarized the objections to her hiring, given her record in overseeing the infamous Israel-bashing event:
Columbia has “become a hotbed of anti-Israel haters,” said the president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein. “It’s especially astonishing that a school with such a large Jewish population would insult Jewish people by hiring these haters of the Jewish state of Israel.”
The groups also blame Ms. Robinson for allowing the Durban conference to become a global platform for anti-Israel venting. Ms. Robinson, as the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, rejected many American demands to remove anti-Israel language from final conference documents.
“Under Mary Robinson’s leadership the Human Rights Commission was one-sided and extremist. In her tenure at the HRC, she lacked fairness in her approach to the Israeli/Palestinian issue,” said the chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, James Tisch. “I am hopeful — for the sake of her students and the reputation of Columbia — that as she enters the world of academia she will demonstrate more balance in her views.”
Recently deceased congressman and human-rights champion Tom Lantos had this to say:
Mary Robinson’s lack of leadership was a major contributing factor to the debacle in Durban. Her yearning to have a “dialogue among civilizations” blinded her to the reality that the noble goals of her conference had been usurped by some of the world’s least tolerant and most repressive states, wielding human rights claims as a weapon in a political dispute.
But Durban was not the only blot on her record. As [2] Michael Rubin pointed out in [3] this 2002 column, in her capacity as president of Ireland, she also happily provided millions of dollars of support to the PLO, which were used in terror attacks:
During the last four years of Robinson’s tenure, the European Union donated large sums of money to the Palestinian Authority. Ireland even held the presidency of the European Union for the second half of 1996. During this time, Arafat siphoned large amounts of European aid money away to pay for terror. Robinson can plead ignorance, but documents seized during the recent Israeli incursion into the West Bank revealed that the Palestinian Authority spent approximately $9 million of European Union aid money each month on the salaries of those organizing terror attacks against civilians. While European officials like Robinson looked the other way, the Palestinian Authority regularly converted millions of dollars of aid money into shekels at rates about 20 percent below normal, allowing the Palestinian chairman to divert millions of dollars worth of aid into his personal slush fund.
And then in her post-Durban career, she proceeded on the same Israel-bashing course that has made her infamous among supporters of Israel:
Robinson’s post-Durban record is little better. On April 15, Robinson’s commission voted on a decision that condoned suicide bombings as a legitimate means to establish Palestinian statehood (six European Union members voted in favor including, not surprisingly, France and Belgium). The vote came after Robinson initiated a drive to become a fact finder to investigate the now-famous massacre in Jenin (also known as “the massacre that never happened”).
There are no words to describe how atrocious a selection this is. But it does speak volumes about the president’s sympathies. And now, will the same voices that condemned her appointment to Columbia step forward? We hope. Somewhere, Tom Lantos is weeping.
From http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/74851
Jack Kemp seems to be the token conservative. All the rest are losers. Some are gigantic losers. Harvey Milk? Teddy Kennedy? Good grief.
How about a posthumous reward to Josef Stalin? He was well recommended by the New York Times.
Billie Jean Kingis known for winning>>>
Ahhh I see the typos continue in the White House Press Office...
Who is running this joint?!?!?!
“Sen. Edward Kennedy is one of the longest-serving and greatest Senators of all time. He has worked tirelessly for health care reform over the last five decades.”
He couldn’t bring back Mary Jo, nor did he try to save the bridge. (the bridge was torn down, Mary Jo is still dead)
Oh, so is Oldsmobile.
May I add the following to the list (since age was brought up). No offense, just making a jab at the wonderful press which enlightens us.
Following is a brief, there is a bit more at the link which may be of interest (a quick load even for dial up).
A 95-year-old Crow Indian who went into battle wearing war paint beneath his World War II uniform and later emerged as an acclaimed Native American historian will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom next month.
http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2009/07/30/ap-state-mt/us_crow_chief_medal.txt
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