Posted on 11/30/2006 7:59:36 AM PST by WmCraven_Wk
PRESIDENT Bush's departing defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, will be given the Union League of Philadelphia's Gold Medal tomorrow - and at least one distinguished member of that elegant institution is "astonished and ashamed."
In a blistering letter to League president Frank Giordano, longtime member James A. Ouns-worth called Rumsfeld "an arrogant and dishonest human being" who "with his blundering ahead with the war in Iraq, with his pigheadedness when faced with mistakes and failures... has presided over what may well be one of the great disasters of U.S. history."
Ounsworth, a Navy nuclear engineer who became a prominent Philadelphia lawyer, said he was "reconsidering whether I should continue as a member of such an organization."
Giordano did not respond to a Daily News request for an interview.
Union League spokesperson Patricia Tobin said that Giordano had received Ounsworth's letter, but would not comment on it publicly.
"We're pleased and honored to host [Rumsfeld]," Tobin said. She declined to say anything more.
"This is like the CEOs who are awarded huge severance packages even though they're failures," Ounsworth told the Daily News yesterday. "Rumsfeld is a failure. I don't think you should give an award for failure. I thought the Union League stood for more than that."
On its Web site, the Union League states it was "founded in 1862 as a patriotic society to support the policies of President Abraham Lincoln," has "given local support to the American military in each conflict since the Civil War, and continues to be driven by its founding motto, 'Love of Country Leads.' "
But Ounsworth said that honoring Rumsfeld violates League principles because he "was directly involved in the deaths of over 2,800 U.S. soldiers and the wounding of more than 20,000. I can't imagine why they would want to honor him."
Ounsworth, a Naval Academy graduate who was a fullback and linebacker on quarterback Roger Staubach's legendary teams, said, "I call myself a true Republican. I believe in my country. I believe we should support the administration in time of war. But get someone else to honor, not someone who so prominently failed.
"The young men and women who are putting their lives on the line in Iraq," he said, "deserve more than the Union League honoring people who don't measure up, and honoring this guy in particular, who I don't think has ever admitted he made a mistake."
Sandra L. Cadwalader, a socially prominent Center City Philadelphian who is equally outraged by the Rumsfeld medal ceremony, said a friend who is a Union League member "facetiously" invited her to the black-tie event weeks ago.
She and some friends had planned to protest, she said, but "once Rumsfeld resigned, that kind of took the steam out of trying to plan a major protest march at the Union League. If you see a couple of people holding a candlelight vigil, that'll be us."
The Gold Medal recipients, she said, include "Lincoln, Pershing, Eisenhower, George Bush Number One and Supreme Court justices Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor. Giving it to Rumsfeld is a travesty. He is definitely no Sandra Day O'Connor.
"The invasion of Iraq is probably the greatest foreign policy disaster in our history," she said, "but somehow the Union League has managed to put on a happy face, give a black-tie dinner and celebrate... what, exactly?
"I wouldn't mind if the dinner were in New York, but it is humiliating, somehow, to have it in Philadelphia."
Where has our sense of History gone? Sheesh..
"History?" we don't need no stinking history....they don't even call it that in many schools anymore....they call it SOCIAL STUDIES....
A Carter wananbe.
And that's a good thing.
this is why Rick Santorum lost....
You misspelled Anus-worth.
Alas, this is what passes for a "Republican" in the keystone state - that and Arlen Specter, Perzel, Jubelier...
A whole story wrapped around one person's "outrage".
Only in liberal 'Philthy'-delphia.
3000 members and one guy's letter is a news story?
This is relevant because ... ? BFD. Jimmy Carter and Homer Simpson were nuclear engineers.
He is also too much of a gentleman to tell this and some of the other member of the League what they can do with their Gold Medal. This man not only has been a part of history, he will be redeemed by history in the near future.
The real failure is in not seeing what a great contributer to the War on Terror Rumsfeld is. Shame on The Union League of Philadelphia.
Just like innumerable zotted trolls.
It is when he sends a second copy to the press.
Bu-bye asshat. Head on down to Georgia and hook up with that other fine nuclear engineer, Jimmah Carter. You're peas in a pod.
Jimmy Carter (Spit, rot in Hell) was supposedly a nuclear engineer.
Neutron damage to the Central Nervous System would explain it.
Until World War II, Union League members were the epitome of "rock-ribbed" pro-business Republicans, who were strong supporters of protective tariffs, laissez faire in connection with domestic government, and isolationist, at least with respect to Europe. A combination of factors, including the liberal takeover of the Ivy League universities, the elite boarding schools, and the mainline Protestant churches, especially the Episcopal, Northern Presbyterian, and United Church of Christ (Congregationalist) denominations, caused the old Northeastern WASP elite to shift ideologically from old-style Republicanism to Rockefeller or "me-too" Republicanism and, in many cases, to the left wing of the Democratic Party. The scions of old line families, like the Rockefellers in New York and West Virginia, the Lodges and Welds in Massachusetts, the Pells in Rhode Island, and the Keans in New Jersey, are clearly liberal. Look at the leftward drift of the Tafts in Ohio (old Yankee family that moved to Cincinnati) and the Fishes in New York from laissez faire, limited government, and isolationist sentiment to liberalism, and you will see evidence of the leftward drift of the old elite.
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