Among these were Bill Russell, basketball player, and YoYo Ma, cellist.
What in the world did they do to deserve America's highest civilian honor? Don't get me wrong, Russell was a great basketball player, (but according to the Wikipedia bio of him, he doesn't like white people very much. "Russell's public statements became increasingly militant, so far that he was quoted in a 1963 Sports Illustrated interview with the words: "I dislike most white people because they are people... I like most blacks because I am black", expressing that "human" was a negative trait and "black" was a positive trait which were mutually exclusive") and YoYo Ma is a great cellst, but that doesn't make them deserve America's highest civilian honor.
Stan Musial also received the medal today, and at least he had served his country during WWII, but did he deserve it? He's a great man, yes, but for the *highest* honor, shouldn't you have to do something like save the lives of a carload of passengers from a crazed knife-wielding maniac?
It's true that being the best at your chosen calling is unusual these days, and people should be awarded for that, just not the highest civilian honor in the land!
I'll go further. President George Bush Sr. also received the medal...but does he deserve it? He was President of the United States, anything he did was his job, it was not a selfless act of self-sacrifice, as for example the 300 or so surviving WASP who received their medals a couple of years ago. They flew planes during WWII, and 38 of them died for their country, but because they were civilians their parents had to pay to have their bodies shipped home...
Anyway, Rush comments on the identify of a few of the people receiving the award today:
I mean, when they just cited Buffett, they said that he got the Medal of Freedom because he is spearheading a movement for all wealthy people to give away half of everything they have to charities. I haven't heard why Sweeney is getting it. Well, no, I did hear it. Sweeney was something about elevating the middle class to true prosperity. Sweeney has played a large role in that, creating and elevating the middle class. Maya Angelou got the Medal of Freedom, she of the famous poem at Clinton's inauguration, "The river, the rock, and the tree."
And the guy that created the Natural Resources Defense Council (an environmentalist wacko) got the Medal of Freedom for his stewardship of our beautiful planet and freedom and so forth. So they're all getting the Medal of Freedom. There are fourteen of them up there. I've been to one of these ceremonies. It was my birthday in George Bush's last year which would have been 2009, January 12th, 2009. Tony Blair got one that day, and the prime minister from Australia John Howard. They didn't speak. The president gives the award, and that's it and they all sit down. But none of them speak. I don't know if that will be the case.
Sweeney built the Service Employees International Union, which is probably why he is getting the award. I don't know to what extent presidents are involved in choosing. I would have to say there is some involvement given some of these recipients, but I'm not gonna sit here, Snerdley, I'm not gonna sit here and decry any of this because someday when I get mine there are gonna be people asking, "What in the world is Rush Limbaugh doing up there getting the American Medal of Freedom? What and how did that happen?" The same thing is gonna happen. I will be in that club, I will be in a little fraternity and I'm not gonna go on record here as besmirching the fraternity.
I think John Lewis is gonna get the Medal of Freedom today. Yeah, he got "beat upside the head" marching in Selma. Bill Russell of the Celtics got it today. So it's a cross section of Americans receiving the Medal of Freedom. It would be the highest honor that the United States government bestows upon people, not just its citizens. I think it was Blair and Howard who got the Medal of Freedom. It might have been something else. I don't know, but it might well have been that. Anyway, welcome back, my friends. Oh, it's like the Presidential Medal of Freedom. So obviously Obama has some say in it.
Jean Kennedy Smith just received the Medal of Freedom at the White House ceremony. She was introduced this way. "Jean Kennedy Smith, the eighth of nine children of Joseph and Rose Kennedy joined the family business, which was --" I'm gonna have to paraphrase this because I was a little taken aback at what the Kennedy family business was. "Jean Kennedy Smith, the eighth of nine children of Joe and Rose Kennedy joined the family business to improve the lives of American people." I didn't know that was the Kennedy family business. The Kennedy family business could be described in any number of ways, we all know. But I just had never heard it described that way. She joined the Kennedy family business of improving the lives of the American people. Given that criteria, I mean there can't be any doubt that I will someday be in this club. You know it. I mean, it's bound to happen at some point.
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In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.
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