Face it, the Presidential Medal of Freedom has lost some of its luster since President Bush presented it to three extraordinary screw-ups — George Tenet, Tommy Franks and Paul Bremer — in 2004. But in an effort to resort it to its rightful place in the pantheon of medal-dom, say right up there is the Nobel Peace Prize, former U.S. Representative Henry Hyde of Illinois will be a recipient of the 2007 award.

Hank is to be commended for his many fine years of public service as a Republican congressman. When not personally consuming the other white meat, He certainly brought home more than his share of pork for the district in the western suburbs of Chicago where he served with distinction from 1975 to 2006.

But there is a facet of Hank’s illustrious career that President Bush is sure to forget to mention at the medal award ceremony at the White House on Monday: Arch hypocrite.

Let’s jump into the Wayback Machine for a trip to 1998 when Hank, as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was leading the charge against President Bill Clinton for his adulterous consensual sexual affair with a certain White House intern.

It was during those halcyon days of GOP finger waging that a most unfortunate thing happened to Hank: In one of the first big Internet news scoops, a young Salon magazine revealed that Hank had had his own adulterous consensual sexual affair — diddling Cherie Snodgrass, a married Chicago woman (photo) and mother, for five years in the late 1960s.

The revelation followed news stories that two other self-righteous conservative Republicans who, like Hank, had condemned Bill in the strongest terms — Representatives Dan Burton of Indiana and Helen Chenoweth of Idaho — also had had adulterous affairs.

Mind you that Republicans don’t have the franchise on cheating on their spouses and being hypocrites. They just do it with more panache.

Incidentally, in response to the Salon story Hank harrumphed that his affair with Miss Cherie was a “youthful indiscretion.”

He was 41 at the time.