The American Spectator

One of the realizations of life as a conservative champion in America is that the honors handed out for achievement — Oscars, Nobels, Pulitzers, honorary degrees — are generally reserved for liberals.

The Motion Picture Academy, for example, loves to give out its Jean Hersholt Humanitarian award — an Oscar statuette — to actors or prominent Academy members who have made some sort of contribution to the larger world beyond film. Curiously, actor Ronald Reagan, a one-time host of the Oscars with over fifty films to his credit and who went on to larger fame for being the president who ended the Cold War, never received so much as a pleasant nod for what many consider the biggest humanitarian cause of the day.

A Pulitzer for the late Andrew Breitbart? Sure. An honorary Harvard degree for Rush Limbaugh? Or Roger Ailes? Right.

But that doesn’t mean some institutions aren’t there to step up to the plate. 

Tomorrow Chapman University in Orange County, California will not only be hosting our friend Mark Levin at its first Big Orange Book Festival.

In addition, university President James Doti will be awarding Levin the school’s prestigious Presidential Medal for Distinguished Contributions to the Cause of Freedom and Liberty. Mark, of course, is not only a successful talk radio host, he has written the New York Times bestsellers Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America, and Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover’s Story of Joy and Anguish.

Liberty and Tyranny, published in 2009, was cited by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann as the “intellectual foundation of the Tea Party.”

This award is truly well deserved. No one has contributed more to the understanding of the Constitution and its importance in American life than Mark Levin. Yesterday in an appearance on Sean Hannity’s radio show Hannity referred to his friend as a “national treasure.”

Indeed.

If you’re in the area, stop in and see the Great One. And if you haven’t picked up his books yet — get to the bookstore, ya big dopes!