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November 02, 2003
Sen. Kennedy to receive George Bush Award
No, no, this isn't some award for doing something stupid. It's the George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service, given by daddy Bush. Actually, this is old news. The award was announced October 5, but this is the first I heard about it.
From the AP:
U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts will receive the 2003 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service.
The award -- which recognizes an individual's or group's dedication to public service at the local, state, national or international levels -- will be presented to the Democratic lawmaker at a dinner ceremony Nov. 7 after a speech by Kennedy at Texas A&M University's Rudder Auditorium.
Former President Bush will present the award to Kennedy, who will join former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl as recipients.
The New York Daily News reports on the reactions to and the timing of the decision:
Letters and E-mails to the Bush library have been overwhelmingly negative, and a few small donors have vowed to stop sending contributions, Bush sources said.
...
The ex-President endorsed the recommendation of a Bush Library Foundation committee to give the award to Kennedy. The decision was made before the Iraq war.
Conservative columnist Georgie Anne Geyer writes in "Bush Sr. Sends Not-So-Subtle Message With Award To Kennedy" of the award betraying a growing policy rift between Bush the Elder and Bush the Younger:
Since the current President Bush veered away from the real war against terrorism in Afghanistan and went a'venturing in Iraq, much to his father's dismay, just about everybody close to Washington politics has known of the policy schism between father and son.
It was politically and philosophically obvious. But people around Father Bush, a coterie of traditional internationalist conservatives who protect him like a wolf mother does her cubs, would heatedly deny any family rift -- and nobody spoke publicly about it.
Now it's all out. Father Bush has done it in his own preferred nuanced way -- the way Establishment gentlemen operate -- but he has revealed the depth of his disagreement with his impetuously uninformed son.
And won't it be interesting to analyze the speeches citing Teddy, who is surely one of W's primary political nemeses, for his public service and principles at the Bush Library Center on the Texas A&M campus on Nov. 7? One can bet they will be subtle -- but also very clear.
Guess I'll be waiting with Georgie to see how things go down this week.
Posted by glyphic at November 2, 2003 03:26 PM