"Every week the boys would have to check out library books and write reports on them," Bush said. "She would hand them back with check marks, as though she had reviewed them - never letting on that she couldn't read them."
When Bush said, "Welcome to the White House," Sonya Carson stood and waved to a round of applause in the East Room, where she sat near Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, former Sen. Bob Dole and the actor Cuba Gooding Jr. - who will portray Carson in an upcoming film.
A false start
FOR THE RECORD - An article in Friday's editions about Dr. Benjamin S. Carson Sr. receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom incorrectly credited Dr. Denton Cooley, a previous medal recipient, with performing the world's first heart transplant. The first successful procedure was completed by Dr. Christiaan Barnard of South Africa.
The Sun regrets the error.
Bush read a detailed account of Carson's life and achievements, and the doctor took a few steps forward to receive the medal. However, he was supposed to wait for the president to talk about the five other winners.
The premature timing drew a good-natured rebuke from Bush, who looked Carson back to his seat near a large portrait of Martha Washington and chided: "The bestowing part will take place a little later, Ben."
Upon completion of the six introductions and the formal reading of a citation by a military officer, Bush smiled broadly at Carson and summoned him closer, so he could clasp a blue ribbon bearing the medal around the doctor's neck.
Carson joins a notable list of Medal of Freedom winners in the medical field, including Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed a vaccine for polio, and Dr. Denton Cooley, who received his surgical training at Hopkins and in 1968 performed the first heart transplant. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the top AIDS research official at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, was also honored yesterday.
Others in the latest group of Medal of Freedom recipients include retired Marine Gen. Peter Pace, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Donna E. Shalala, president of the University of Miami and secretary of health and human services in the Clinton administration; Laurence H. Silberman, a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and co-chairman of the Iraq Intelligence Commission; and the late Rep. Tom Lantos of California, the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress.
Carson is "such a role model," said Maryland Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, who attended the ceremony.
The White House visit gave Carson a chance to chat privately with Bush about nonmedical topics, including offshore oil exploration. Carson said he told Bush, a former oilman, that it would be difficult to convince the public that drilling has become more environmentally sound today than it was 30 years ago.
"He said, 'You are absolutely right,'" Carson said.
david.nitkin@baltsun.com
