Did Bush Sr. sent a 'message' to Bush Jr.?

IT'S NOT AS THOUGH Osama bin Laden gave a Jihad Award to Ariel Sharon, or Donald Rumsfeld gave his Good Pal Award to Condoleezza Rice. It's not even as though Dick Cheney gave his Favorite Foreigners Citation to the French.

But the news from College Station, Texas, this week -- that the First Father, former President George H.W. Bush, has given his own most treasured award to Senator Edward Kennedy -- is nearly as astonishing.

When it was announced (with amazingly little fanfare) that the pugnaciously anti-Iraq war Democrat Kennedy had been awarded the 2003 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service, so many jaws dropped all over Washington that usually voluble politicians were only heard swallowing their real thoughts.

Meanwhile, Barbara Bush shows she why she never had the grace and judgement of her husband. Former First Lady Barbara Bush Blasts 2004 Democratic Presidential Field As a 'Sorry Group'.

At 78, with one son in the White House and another in the Florida governor's mansion, the self-described Bush family "enforcer" seems to feel less compunction than ever about keeping a lid on her blunt assessments, writes Contributing Editor Melinda Henneberger. Her new memoir was toned down considerably by her editors at Scribner.

"Yes, Miss Frank over there," her husband says over lunch at their home in Kennebunkport. To ward off libel suits, he says, "the publishers had to take out a lot."