They honored the controversial, though increasingly appreciated, Asian statesman Lee Kuan Yew at the historic Ford Theater in Washington recently, and I wish I had been there.
Exceptional leaders are hard to find anywhere on the globe, including Asia. Until his recent retirement, this tough-as-nails guy — now 89 — had helped organize and run tiny Singapore almost like nobody has ever run anything. He certainly didn't do things 100 percent the American way. This made this U.S.-led award event all the more extraordinary and noteworthy.
They call it the Ford Theatre's Lincoln Medal. Recipients are said to somehow exemplify the legacy of old Abe himself. So now modern Singapore's founding prime minister finds himself in the same category as past awardee Desmond Tutu, the legendary anti-apartheid crusader and 1984 Nobel laureate. And Lee becomes the first Lincoln awardee ever from Asia.
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