As commendable as her position in regards to the HUAC may have been, her politics were not always so admirable.
At a time when endless war is not just a nightmarish fictional scenario but a real and looming possibility, there is still a position less commendable than having dangerous ideas, and that is having no position at all.
Last Wednesday, before Commendable was due to draw a post position for the 132nd running of the Belmont Stakes, the colt's owner, Bob Lewis, made a phone call to D. Wayne Lukas.
The administration's desire to have Iraqis rather than Americans in visible positions of authority is commendable but, at the moment, unattainable.
It was, he recalls with commendable understatement, an "unstructured" place.
The driving position and seat comfort were also commendable.
"He came around to our position, and I think it's really commendable.
And D. Wayne Lukas, who has won the Derby four times, selected three positions near the outside: No. 13 for Commendable, No. 17 for Exchange Rate and No. 18 for High Yield, winner of the Fountain of Youth Stakes and the Blue Grass and the third choice for the Derby at 5-1.
In this respect the position of the French Parliament is hardly more commendable than that of the Turkish authorities, for whom references to the Armenian genocide are seen as an insult to "Turkishness" and thus treated as a criminal offense under section 301 of the Turkish penal code.
