James Kirchick: Did Obama vet Mary Robinson before choosing her for the Medal of Freedom?
[James Kirchick is an assistant editor of The New Republic.]
Today, Barack Obama will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 16 recipients. What should be a joyous affair, however, has been the subject of growing controversy due to the selection of Mary Robinson--a former United Nations official who presided over the notoriously anti-Zionist 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. For this, Obama has earned himself much criticism from the American Jewish community. Though her "failure of leadership" in her UN post is widely known, a source in the Obama White House that Robinson was "not fully vetted." And, in spite of Robinson's history, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tried to wave the issue away when he said that, "There are statements that obviously, that she has made that the president doesn't agree with, and that's probably true for a number of the people that the president is recognizing for their lifetime contributions." Is it possible that the White House selected Robinson without knowing the extent of her unsavory record?
That's highly unlikely. The process by which the White House awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom is far more rigorous than one might imagine. While the vetting method may vary somewhat between administrations, its rough outlines were provided to me by a former staffer in the George W. Bush White House who was intimately involved in the process.
According to this official, the point-person for the Medal of Freedom is the White House staff secretary, who acts as the "central hub" for all documents that are going in or out of the Oval Office. This individual would put out a notice to the White House staff requesting recommendations for the medal. Once that list was compiled, the staff secretary would send it for review to Karl Rove, Bush's deputy chief of staff and senior advisor. This official told me that Chief of Staffs Andy Card and Josh Bolten were also "involved" early in the process during their respective tenures.
Once the list was whittled down to a manageable number, White House researchers conducted a thorough check of all available public records--including news clips, public statements, and tax records--to discover if anything in the individuals' history might be objectionable. "Problematic issues" were compiled into a report which was sent to the staff secretary for review. The former Bush administration official explained the thoroughness of the background checks to me thusly: "If we don't figure out all this stuff now, when it becomes public these are things that opponents can hit us on." ...
Read entire article at The New Republic
Today, Barack Obama will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 16 recipients. What should be a joyous affair, however, has been the subject of growing controversy due to the selection of Mary Robinson--a former United Nations official who presided over the notoriously anti-Zionist 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. For this, Obama has earned himself much criticism from the American Jewish community. Though her "failure of leadership" in her UN post is widely known, a source in the Obama White House that Robinson was "not fully vetted." And, in spite of Robinson's history, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tried to wave the issue away when he said that, "There are statements that obviously, that she has made that the president doesn't agree with, and that's probably true for a number of the people that the president is recognizing for their lifetime contributions." Is it possible that the White House selected Robinson without knowing the extent of her unsavory record?
That's highly unlikely. The process by which the White House awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom is far more rigorous than one might imagine. While the vetting method may vary somewhat between administrations, its rough outlines were provided to me by a former staffer in the George W. Bush White House who was intimately involved in the process.
According to this official, the point-person for the Medal of Freedom is the White House staff secretary, who acts as the "central hub" for all documents that are going in or out of the Oval Office. This individual would put out a notice to the White House staff requesting recommendations for the medal. Once that list was compiled, the staff secretary would send it for review to Karl Rove, Bush's deputy chief of staff and senior advisor. This official told me that Chief of Staffs Andy Card and Josh Bolten were also "involved" early in the process during their respective tenures.
Once the list was whittled down to a manageable number, White House researchers conducted a thorough check of all available public records--including news clips, public statements, and tax records--to discover if anything in the individuals' history might be objectionable. "Problematic issues" were compiled into a report which was sent to the staff secretary for review. The former Bush administration official explained the thoroughness of the background checks to me thusly: "If we don't figure out all this stuff now, when it becomes public these are things that opponents can hit us on." ...