Obama and Biden Honor Officers in Ceremony
Source: New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Obama, along with his vice president and the secretary of homeland security, honored 34 law enforcement officers chosen as the year’s Top Cops, 31 of whom joined them on a spectacular Saturday in the Rose Garden; the three absent winners are recovering from gunshot wounds.
Mr. Obama, with the honorees standing behind him and their families in the audience, said they had survived “the day when just doing your job and being a hero are exactly the same thing.”
He earlier met with each officer in the Oval Office, and said, “Some of them will tell you they don’t deserve to be called heroes. They’re entitled to their opinion. I disagree with them.”
Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. praised the officers, and also each other, in their first public appearance together after a week of tension over the issue of same-sex marriage. Mr. Biden’s unexpected comments in a TV interview last Sunday saying he supported the issue, which he had once opposed, appeared to have forced Mr. Obama to announce his own election-year change of heart on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, sooner than he had planned.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/us/politics/obama-and-biden-honor-top-cops-in-white-house-ceremony.html?_r=1