The Republican congressman who thinks the American flag should only be lowered to honor U.S. citizens didn’t appear to have any qualms with the wave of tributes for a deceased pontiff.
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) said last week that he objected to lowering the flag to honor late South African President Nelson Mandela, a tribute the congressman said “should be for mourning Americans and not for foreign leaders.”
The last time flags were flown at half-staff to honor a foreign dignitary came in 2005, when former President George W. Bush issued the order to memorialize Pope John Paul II.
Sensenbrenner issued an official statement mourning the pope on the day he died, a gesture the congressman didn’t do for Mandela.
And as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted, Sensenbrenner lobbied for a resolution in 2003 pushing Bush to award Pope John Paul II the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. The resolution passed the House, but failed in the Senate.
Mandela was actually awarded the Medal of Freedom in 2002.
