THE OBSCENITY - AT 8:15 A.M. ET:  Anger is building at the decision by the Obama administration to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, to Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and former chief "human rights" official at the UN.

Ed Lasky of American Thinker alerts us to a great piece at Pajamas Media, pointing out Robinson's vulgar record.  A lot of attention has been focused on her animus toward Israel, but it's her contempt for the United States that demands more attention:

Discussing the Iraq war in a November 2005 interview with Reuters, she remarked cheerfully that “what I find living now in the United States is an encouraging, wide sense of some of the checks and balances kicking in. … In Congress you have, at last, a sense, of ‘we were misled, we should have been more attentive.’” “It was not a legitimate war,” Robinson told Reuters flatly, “and I am glad that more and more people … are coming out to say so.” “The poor, beleaguered people of Iraq are not better off,” she added. Apart from respect for the office of the presidency, why, after all, should Obama not want to honor someone who provided a touch of gravitas to “Bush lied, people died”?

And...

Indeed, Robinson denied outright that the 9/11 attacks constituted an act of war. Thus, for instance, in a June 15, 2002, editorial in the French daily Le Monde, she suggested that talk of a “war” on terrorism was merely an unfortunate choice of words. The fact she herself had called for captured al-Qaeda members to be treated precisely as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions appeared not to trouble her in this connection.

And...

Among other things, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is awarded for “especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States.” Whether Mary Robinson’s agitation against the “war on terror” represents such a contribution is very open to doubt. The most obvious proof to the contrary is provided by the 9/11 attacks themselves.

COMMENT:  You wonder how an award to an airhead like this could be made.  Didn't anyone know of Robinson's record?  The woman presided over the despicable Durban I hatefest in 2001.  Didn't anyone recall?

Maybe the Obamans did remember, and thought of her as wonderful.  There is substantial suspicion - but no direct proof - that Samantha Power was behind this ridiculous award.  It wouldn't surprise me.  She and Robinson think alike.

Robinson's award devalues the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  She's done nothing to advance freedom, much to advance its enemies.  But, alas, she fits in well with a certain element in this decidedly leftist administration.

August 10, 2009