WASHINGTON - Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s children will be at the White House today to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom on behalf of the 77-year-old senator, who is in Hyannis Port battling a brain tumor and mourning the loss of his sister.
His office said that his daughter, Kara, will officially accept the honor, the nation’s highest award given to a civilian, from President Obama. Kennedy’s sons, Ted Kennedy Jr., and Representative Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, will also be at the event, along with Ted Kennedy Jr.’s wife, Kiki, and Caroline and Curran Raclin, the children of Kennedy’s wife, Vicki Reggie Kennedy.
The award citation calls Kennedy “one of the greatest lawmakers - and leaders - of our time,’’ and lauds the veteran senator’s longtime fight for universal healthcare, a goal Obama has made a priority of his young administration.
When the honor was announced last month, Kennedy said he was “profoundly grateful’’ to Obama. Noting that his brother John F. Kennedy founded the medal to honor public service, he said in a statement that to receive the medal from a president “who prizes that same ideal of service and inspires so many to serve is a great privilege that moves me deeply.’’
The honor follows a series of awards Kennedy has received in the past year, including an honorary degree from Harvard and an honorary knighthood by the queen of England.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who died yesterday at 88, was also a Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree, receiving the award in 1984 from Ronald Reagan.
The president will also award the medal to 15 other recipients today, including former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, anti-apartheid leader Desmond Tutu, and tennis legend and activist Billie Jean King.
SUSAN MILLIGAN
Dr. Peter Scardino of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center said the surgery was successful and Dodd was resting comfortably. “It is anticipated that he will be able to return to full activity within a few weeks,’’ Scardino said in a statement released by Dodd’s office.
Dodd, 65, is expected to remain at the hospital for a few days before returning home to Connecticut. The five-term Democrat revealed last month that he had been diagnosed with an early, treatable stage of cancer. He expects to return to a full Senate schedule later this month, and he has said the cancer will not affect his plans to seek a sixth term next year as he faces his toughest reelection fight in nearly 30 years in the Senate.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Washington nonprofit that advocates nutrition-policy reform paid $20,000 to get its message across and carefully maneuvered through the tangle of local regulations to display its posters.
But within 24 hours of the signs’ appearance, the White House asked the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to take down the ads, which feature Jasmine Messiah, a vegetarian who attends a Miami-Dade County public school that, she says, offers no vegetarian or vegan lunch options.
The group has so far declined to take down the posters. “They felt that mentioning the president’s children was off-limits,’’ said its president, Neal Barnard. “They said [they’re] not going to allow the use of their daughters as leverage.’’
WASHINGTON POST
