Crowning of the Sycophants
Medal of Freedom? For SHAME! Freedom? What have our language and our virtues (remember honesty? integrity? humility?) come to?
"Sometimes the medals are intended more to flatter the giver than to honor the recipient. The medal Bush gave this week to former CIA Director George Tenet — along with others given to retired Gen. Tommy Franks and Paul Bremer, administrator of the U.S. occupation — does neither.
It was Tenet who assured Bush it would be a "slam dunk" to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It was under Tenet that the CIA provided misleading materials that Secretary of State Colin Powell used in his speech to the United Nations. Subsequently, the nation was led to war on false pretenses."
Everyone makes a mistake from time to time, sometimes a catastrophic one. Most don't expect to get a medal for it." Houston Chronicle
Keep the medal. Change the Name. Let's call it The "Medal of Loyalty". Or, let's add a New Virtue for the New Century.
Nah. The "Medal of Obsequiousness" is just too hard to say.
Comments
Really sad isn't it. Imagine that you were a legitimate holder of the medal - how would you feel about it now. I would return mine.
Posted by: Robert Paterson | December 16, 2004 6:24 AM
And I thought that I was the only one who noted (with shock!) that the recipients of the awards were unworthy. Perhaps I didn't read our newspaper well, but I don't recall that they made any comment about the relative merits of the current recipient compared to past recipients. Glad that some newspapers picked up on it.
Posted by: Cop Car | December 16, 2004 6:23 PM
Aw, Fred, it's all just a big circle jerk. You know it, I know it, we've always known it, and now that the circles are smaller and the jerks are bigger than ever, everybody knows it really a lot, so much so that they/we just take it for granted. Doesn't make it less appalling, of course, just . . . SOP.
Posted by: Rhonda Rockwell | December 17, 2004 10:56 AM