Wow, you're really using Think Progress as a source for valid information upon which to base a story? As well as the questionable words of a disgruntled former White House staff member trying to sell a book? Your journalistic standards are truly sad; good thing nobody really takes you seriously.

Too bad for them the last HP book had more obvious Christian themes than The Chronicles of Narnia.

Even more disturbing Stan Lee openly advocated Norse religion and science.

Well, Rowlings' Potter series is fairly well written and entertaining fluff, I cannot fathom why, witchcraft or no, why anyone would seriously consider awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a fiction writer. Surely there were more worthy candidates. Surely somebody that year made a "real" difference in the world! And...I agree with "antodav" this article is sheer claptrap.

Don't take their word for it, Read the book! Don't blame the source if it can be verified.

Dr. Strange eats Rowling's witches and wizards for breakfast. I'm sure the White House will do well for dessert.

Wouldn't the medal be better spent given to, you know, AN AMERICAN? I hear tell the Brits got their own awards, something about knights and hood and such. Plus, Harry Potter blows, and should be rejected on that simple premise. What's next, medals to the Twilight girl?

J.K. Rowling is not an American citizen. Why the hell would any President consider giving her the "The Presidential Medal of Freedom". That would be like giving Al Gore the Nobel Peace Prize for his one sided diatribe about global warming.

Unsurprisingly enough this is the same sort of tripe I found when doing my dissertation on the educational value of magic and witchcraft in children's literature. People really do believe that books like the Harry Potter series will make children fly on broomsticks, turn people into toads and use disgruntled trolls to send Valentine's Day greetings. The reality is that just like most other children's books containing magic and witchcraft, the Harry Potter series are fiction. Roald Dahl's The Witches is another prime example. What these books do teach children are morals and team work. That they can overcome adversity. But people equate Witchcraft with evil. I wish before judging a book they would actually read the contents on its pages. But then perhaps that was too much to expect from the Bush administration.

Gee, I thought the Potter books were about good versus evil.

We can all be thankful Bush and his kind were tossed from office, im guessing the C minus student bush was, he probably thought Hogwarts was a real school with wizards and spellcasters, which he probably considered enemies of the USA LOL...

The rules noted in the article say nothing about US Citizenship as a requirement.

Say what you will about Rowling, like her books or hate them: Her series got kids to read (worldwide, not just in the U.S.) --in vast numbers and with a fervor unlike we'd seen in a long time. I'd say that gets us through reqs 1 and 3, per the article above.

Is anyone surprised that such limited thinking would occur in the Busch White House,

Bush: what a f@ckin ass-wipe. Go figure he'd react this way to JK Rowlin's work. That woman did more for fiction and literacy than that Jackass former president.

Yep, we are just one hell of an enlightened country...
/sigh

We already knew the Bush's had limited intelligence and cultural skills, heck, they could only read the comic books, not the volumes that J.K. turned out... Now we are just seeing some confirmation on the matter. -kh

Good thing, everything in the Bible is the absolute truth, else one might mix up divine powers with witchcraft as well. And you don't want to see Bush vs. Moses on the next UFC.

Think Progress?! Are you serious? The story is true but just the fact that scifiwire gets news from that ridiculous site is embarrassing. Think it may be time to get my scifi news from elsewhere....

You really ought to rethink allowing comments here. Unless you don't object to people thinking your readers are idiots?

Justo, and where do you suggest scifiwire get its news, Fox? Remember when Fox had that story about a robot that eats enemy corpses and how they backtracked when the company which made the robot said it only used plant matter as fuel?

And since you admit ThinkProgress printed a true story, maybe you should rethink the idea of being "ridiculous".

I see that Bush Derangement Syndrome is still alive and well, even after he left office. I doubt any of these allegations are true, especially when you look at all the National Medal of the Arts winners during the Bush Administration. Besides Stan Lee, there was Ray Bradbury, Ron Howard, Louis Auchincloss and Beverly Cleary to name a few. If the Bush White house was so afraid of controversy, then why name the director of The Da Vinci Code or the writer of Fahrenheit 451 award winners? Do your research people!

Well said NJDevil!! I find it ironic that most of the Bush haters were members of MoveOn.org and they themselves have yet to move on.....

Nowhere does it say it was President Bush's objection but those of certain staff members. I agree the award should go to an United States Citizen not some 'foreigner' regardless of the subject. Go over yourselves, geez!

The Bush "administration" was a total joke in every ways, this is widely agreed on by anyone who's not a right-wing looney-tune. This story if it's true certainly shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, come on the guy had some kind of messiah complex, god was talking to him, guiding him toward fulfilling lunatic prophecy about "the end-of-days" and the rapture, etc, etc. He needs to be committed and so do the idiots who follow(ed) him.

chris von danger - Just a sidenote, Bush and his staff weren't "thrown out of office". Bush's term as President was up, having served the maximum alotted time of 8 years.

As for the Bush Admin - or some of them, anyway - fearing magic? Doesn't really surprise me. Christians have this odd habit of fearing anything that isn't of their belief. Besides, it's fiction and fantasy. They should be used to it by now, considering most of them have probably read the ruddy bible until they were blue in the face. LOL!

"M", you need to take off the tin-foil hat and join the real world. There is no "widely agreed on by anyone" majority that thinks President Bush's term in office was "a total joke". I don't think the attack of Sept. 11 on New York was a joke nor the war on terror. I don't think it is a joke that there is an AIDS epidemic in Africa, Hugo Chavez is helping to socialize Latin America or that Iran has nukes.

Bush and for that matter Obama are men, nothing more nothing less. We elected them to make the best decision with the intelligence available for our country.

Since when did this become a political debate? Everyone has their opinions but no matter what, no ones opinions are better than anyone else's as long as they are based on fact and not conjecture...

My only problem with Rowling receiving any kind of freedom award, is she depicted the average wizard and witch as little more than ignorant Sheeple (Sheep people); not very indicative of a march towards freedom. That The Bush administration was afraid of a fictional setting of what they encouraged speaks highly of their own ignorance. And the new wanting to reward her notes that they have not or do not recognize the undertones that exist there some of which include: fangirls get their guy, smart women settle for idiots, and the greater ignorance a society possesses, the easier it is to terrorize and conquer it, and everything is explained away as a magical plotholes and bad characterization.

Gee, a post on Scifiwire turning into a Bush-bashing fest. Get over it people. Both George and his librarian wife Laura are on record saying they loved the HP books. This is nothing but a disgruntled staff member trying to sell books. Learn to think for yourselves. That was a lesson in the HP books, by the way.

Times are tough for the Libs (sorry, "Progressives"), so they try to distract their Lemmings by getting them pissed at "W" again.

Sci Fi Wire, there's something wrong with your new system. Now I can't press "back" to see my typed comments if the encryption doesn't work; the entire thing is erased, so I have to retype everything.

antodav, relying on the comments of former officials is much more reliable than those who've been treated well or remain in office. That's how we found out a lot of truth about the Bush admin. From former Treasury Secy Paul O'Neil, who disliked how Bush made up nicknames for him and made fun of him in front of others before firing him; to former press secy Scott McClelland, who spoke about Bush's superficial and ideological thinking; to former Homeland Security secy Tom Ridge, who stated that the color-coded system wasn't based on actual assessments of national security, but was engineered from the White House to manipulate the public with fear.

I'm not surprised that the Bush admin feared acknowledging Harry Potter. Have you folks seen the documentary about Christian fundamentalists "Jesus Camp"? In it, they discourage kids from reading it by screaming that Harry Potter would be put to death for his actions. They see it as unchristian.

Didn't Christian fundamentalists get all upset at Optimus Prime's resurrection, which they saw as competing with the notion of Jesus Christ's resurrection?

To all those saying that the Medal of Freedom should only be given to American citizens, you should know that France's President Jacques Chirac gave the French Legion of Honor to Clint Eastwood for his films "Letters from Iwo Jima" and "Flags of Our Fathers" because they were good pieces of political art, and didn't care that he wasn't French. It's a good thing that not every one in the world is a nationalist.

George W. MORON! ...and friends.

if it is true i'm not surprised.Bush,Carl rove and that bunch are very beholden to the christian right.and they are always looking for something to be offended by.and if he was to give J.K. any kind of award there would be hell to pay from there supporters.meaning, no more money

wicca is all about peace and the magic in the human being.

So now the government is looking at stories of magic as objectionable? They ignore the swearing, the nudity, the torture porn being created and the heroes looking more and more like villains... and decide to go after a kid that waves a wand and fights "bad guys".

Man, those tax dollars are really getting put to good use aren't they?

Way to go, B.O.! Life is better now that the real problems are being dealt with.

Actually, Laura Bush, the librarian remember, denies the story. Harry Potter is one of her favorite series. And Bush is a Methodist. We don't think the fictional magic in the Harry Potter series is a threat to anyone. This is a BS report.

As to Rowlings, I took a look at the authors the medal's been given to over the years. Sorry, she doesn't belong in that crowd any more than she should hold her breath for a Nobel Prize in Literature.

Eh, this was an administration headed by an idiot who once said God told him to invade Iraq.

What more do you need?

Odd how a story comes out on one topic and all I read is abject hatred for a president no longer in office.

I see getting someone in office with a D in their party description has done nothing to satisfy the need for blind hatred.

Welcome to "Change" we can believe in.

granted the bush administration is a easy target.i don't like how the left sucks up to Hollywood.but i woulden't be surprised if it is true.becouse of crap i've had to put up with from fellow christians for being a harry potter fan.and Evangelicals did have a big voice with the last president

You're using Think Progress? Next you be shouting the propaganda of moveon.org

please use real news sources or I'll just tune you out.

For the record, it has been noted that the gentleman who wrote this book had limited access to President Bush, which is one reason why most sensible members of the former administration are surprised at the idiotic accusations being thrown out by his book. Still, glad to see that Bush Derangement Syndrome is alive and well.

Screw this dumb debate about if Bush did or didn't want to give a medal to J.K. Rowling. All I can think about is that we're wasting tax payers money giving medals to people who write books and comics. We've got a million things that government should be more concerned about.

Information from books like Matt Latimer's should be taken with a grain of salt. But since it's well known for right wing Christians to express such opposition to books like the Harry Potter series, Latimer's claim seems entirely plausible.

The religious right has always used this excuse as far back as when Christianity first invaded Europe when they cast the devil in the form of the Pagan's god of nature Pan to justify mass murder of the Pagans and the subjugation through Christ.

Any belief that has to be spread by threat of death, or worse, is inherently evil.

Although entirely unrelated to this topic, when did 'capitalism' become 'neo-socialism'? Just expressing my 1st ammendment rights. Darn hippies...try intellectualizing sober.

If it weren't for the published word, no one would have ammunition for their pompous notions. So, whom really has credibility for what they publish? The human condition is too complex and depraved to be absolutely trusted.

Two things:
1. They guy was a Presidential speechwriter, so he had access enough
2. If the article were true, it never attirubuted the "fear" to George W. Bush. If it indeed happened, it woul dbe the discussion among the staffers.

get real people

Did anyone stop to ask who one the honor instead? Maybe someone got it that deserved it more than JKR. I love how people jump on soap boxes and complain without using any logic whatsoever.

lol J.K rowling is a joke, why would she get a high award for just recyclin the same old story?

New star trek
harry potter
star wars

and many more. think about it, each movie starts off with someone who doesnt quite fit in, someone mysterious comes and tells them they will do great things to stop a evil villian ahead.

Since when is reading a fictitious story border on witch craft?? These crazy conservatives need to understand they can't control people's minds. I cannot believe ADULTS are so stupid sometimes... It wouldn't be a big deal if people would just not make it a big deal!! RELAX!