DISGUSTING; Bush to honor draft dodger Muhammed Ali
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Bush to honor Muhammad Ali, 'Hotel Rwanda' hero
Yahoo AFP ^ | 11/03/05
MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina (AFP) - US President George W. Bush will bestow the highest US civilian honor on boxing legend Muhammad Ali, "Hotel Rwanda" hero Paul Rusesabagina and 11 others, the White House said.
Singer Aretha Franklin, US Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan, and golfer Jack Nicklaus will also receive presidential medals of freedom in a November 9 ceremony at the White House, said Bush spokesman Scott McClellan.
Last year, Bush raised eyebrows by giving the medal to former CIA director George Tenet, retired general Tommy Franks and the former civilian overseer for Iraq, Paul Bremer, sidestepping their ties to controversies over the Iraq war.
This year, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Richard Myers; comic actress Carol Burnett; television star Andy Griffith; a historian of Stalin's rule, Robert Conquest will also get the award.
Medals will also go to Radio personality Paul Harvey; the author of the GI Bill that sent millions of World War II veterans to college, Sonny Montgomery; baseball great Frank Robinson; and Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, who designed the software code that is used to transmit data over the Internet.
Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, used his influence to bribe and cajole military and government officials to save 1,268 people sheltering from the massacre of some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus between April and July 1994. |
