Obama to give Kennedy Medal of Freedom

President Obama will award Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) next month with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor.

In announcing the award for Kennedy, a nine-term senator who is fighting brain cancer, the White House called him “one of the greatest lawmakers — and leaders — of our time.”

The award comes as Democrats in Congress and Obama are pushing for healthcare reform legislation, which has long been Kennedy’s top issue, the White House noted in its release.

“He has called health care reform the ’cause of his life,’ and has championed nearly every health care bill enacted by Congress over the course of the last five decades,” the White House said.

The medals will be awarded to Kennedy and 15 others during a White House ceremony August 12, when the Senate is expected to away for its August recess. Kennedy’s office has yet to say whether he will attend.

Kennedy, in a statement, said he is “profoundly grateful” to receive the honor, first given to non-World War II veterans by his brother, President John F. Kennedy.

“My life has been committed to the ideal of public service which President Kennedy wanted the Medal of Freedom to represent,” Sen. Kennedy said. “To receive it from another president who prizes that same ideal of service and inspires so many to serve is a great privilege that moves me deeply.”

Kennedy, who continues to undergo cancer treatment, last voted in April and has been outside of Washington during negotiations on a healthcare reform bill. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) filled in for Kennedy as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which was the first committee to begin marking up health reform legislation this year. The Senate Finance Committee, the other panel with jurisdiction over health reform in the upper chamber, has yet to take up a bill.

The other recipients of the medal this year are: late Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.); actor Sidney Poitier; tennis player Billie Jean King; Archbishop Desmond Tutu; physicist Stephen Hawking; former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; civil rights leader Rev. Joseph Lowery; cure for cancer advocate Nancy Goodman Brinker; late gay rights advocate Harvey Milk; former Ireland President Mary Robinson;
Miami physician Pedro Jose Greer Jr.; Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow, the last living Plains Indian war chief; human geneticist Janet Davison Rowley; anti-poverty activist Muhammad Yunus; and actress Chita Rivera.

“Each saw an imperfect world and set about improving it, often overcoming great obstacles along the way,” Obama said.

–Walter Alarkon