Presidential Medals of Freedom, with honor, humor

President Bush helps Pulitzer Prize winning author of "To Kill A Mockingbird" Harper Lee to her feet. Bob Hyde, son of retired Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, seated second from left. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

by Mark Silva

Retired Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois and Nobel Prize-winning Chicago economist Gary Becker joined pioneers in civil rights, the human genetic code and geopolitics today in receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

With an East Room ceremony steeped in honor and dashed with humor, President Bush tied the blue-and-white ribboned medal around the necks of six recipients and handed the white-and-gold starred medal in wooden cases to the sons of two others.

In his own time in the White House, Bush has annually awarded the medal with a celebratory air – honoring blues guitarist B.B. King and television and film legend Andy Griffith as well as academics and politicians. And he has awarded the medal in controversy – honoring George Tenet, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, after his oversight of pre-war intelligence later found flawed.

Today, it was all celebratory.

The second-born son of Hyde was here, Bob Hyde, a private banker in Dallas, Tex., today, to receive the award for his father, who is 82, served 32 years in Congress and is recuperating from heart bypass surgery.

Hyde, a Republican who ran some of the most powerful committees in Washington in his time, “spent more than three decades as a towering figure in Washington, D.C.’’ said Bush, noting that Hyde also stood tall on the Georgetown University basketball team.

Hyde “walked with kings and kept the common touch,’’ Bush said, turning to Hyde’s son, seated center stage on a low riser in the gilded and chandeliered East Room. “Please tell your dad, a lot of us here in Washington love him.’’

While Hyde ruled in the Judiciary and International Relations committees, he is perhaps best known for his fight against abortion, restricting federal funding for it. And his son suggested today that that is part of the legacy honored with this medal.

“It’s gratification,’’ Bob Hyde, 55, said of his father’s award in an interview. “I think it affirms the importance and the value of his stance on many things, like right to life… It means a lot to him,’’ he said of the retired congressman: “Serving in this capacity has been an avocation as well as a vocation. Frankly, he is a bit of a workaholic. This is one way of saying it was worth the effort, and the price he paid, the time and energy.’’

Becker, longtime professor of economics at the University of Chicago and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics, had said in an earlier interview that we was honored to be one of the few economists to claim the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In fact, Bush said, only two have won both the Nobel Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom – the renowned Milton Friedman, and now Becker.

Bush quoted Becker as once saying that “many intellectuals, many economists, use obscure language when they write – sometimes it’s a way of not saying a lot.’’ That cannot be said of Becker, who wrote a magazine column for nearly two decades in addition to serving at the University of Chicago since 1970. Bush said: “He is one of the most influential economists of the last 100 years.’’

Another medalist’s son was here: Yan Valdes, son of Cuban political prisoner Oscar Elias Biscet, and he choked back tears as the president commended the imprisoned dissident. “”God willing, he’ll soon receive his freedom, as justice demands,’’ Bush said.

Benjamin Hooks, onetime and longtime director of the NAACP, stood with a cane to receive his medal. Bush cited Hooks for possessing what the late Martin Luther King Jr. once called “the strength to love.’’ Hooks, who suffered discrimination as a sergeant in the Army, was denied access to law school in home-state Tennessee because he is black, Bush noted, and Hooks found that degree at DePaul University in Chicago.

Harper Lee, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird, turned and grinned widely at Hooks as he was honored. Lee was honored for penning her sole novel, revered 46 years later as an anthem to civil rights and justice in America. Lee, who needed the president’s help standing on stage and held on to his arm with both hands, started work as an airline reservation clerk, Bush said. “Fortunately for all of us, she didn’t stick to writing itineraries.’’

Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman elected president of an African nation, received the medal. Bush, noting that First Lady Laura Bush had attended Sirleaf’s inauguration, said he had asked what to expect of her and was told: “a woman of depth and an ability to get things done.’’ That was correct, Bush said with a smile for Sirleaf: “In the Oval Office, she walks in with a to-do list.’’

Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, was honored for leading the decoding of the human genetic sequence. In addition, Bush said, he can sing and play the guitar – Bush knows that from a performance at a national prayer breakfast. “When a man can get up and sing in front of 3,000 people at 8 a.m.,’’ Bush said. “there is something special about his DNA.’’

Brian Lamb, founder and CEO of C-SPAN, was honored for his dedication to television that carries no agenda other than informing a well-advised electorate. “C-SPAN is not what you’d call exciting TV,’’ the president said. “It is, however, a tool that enlightens democracy.’’