The Golden Fleece Award (1975–1988) was presented to those public officials in the United States who, the judges feel, waste public money. Its name is a tangential reference to the Order of the Golden Fleece and a play on the transitive verb to fleece, as in charging excessively for goods or services. United States Senator William Proxmire, a Democrat from Wisconsin, began to issue the Golden Fleece Award in 1975 in monthly press releases. The Washington Post once referred to the award as "the most successful public relations device in politics today." Robert Byrd, a Democratic Senator from West Virginia, referred to the award as being "as much a part of the Senate as quorum calls and filibusters."
Read more about Golden Fleece Award: Award, Award Winners
Famous quotes containing the words golden, fleece and/or award:
“In marble halls as white as milk,
Lined with a skin as soft as silk,
Within a fountain crystal-clear,
A golden apple doth appear.
No doors there are to this stronghold,
Yet thieves break in and steal the gold.”
—Mother Goose (fl. 17th–18th century. In marble walls as white as milk (Riddle: An Egg)
“Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And every where that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go;
He followed her to school one day—
That was against the rule,
It made the children laugh and play,
To see a lamb at school.”
—Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1788–1879)
“The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)