Katharine Hepburn delighted audiences with her unique talent for more than six decades. She was known for her intelligence and wit and will be remembered as one of the nation's artistic treasures. Laura joins me in sending our thoughts and prayers to her family.

--president's statement, posted at whitehouse.gov

Think the Bushies know about Hepburn's politics, or her mother's?

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was a friend and colleague of Margaret Sanger. The actress Katharine Hepburn has said, "My mother came to the family planning movement through her work as an ardent suffragist. She knew that birth control was as essential to women's emancipation as the vote itself. As early as 1911, Mother launched a campaign for birth control in her Connecticut hometown. In 1923, she and some friends founded the Connecticut Birth Control League, which later became Planned Parenthood of Connecticut. And in 1928, she joined Margaret Sanger in building a new, controversial organization called the American Birth Control League. Today that organization is known as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America."

--plannedparenthood.org

...the younger Hepburn did not choose the role of militant public crusader in making her opinions known on civil rights, human rights in living and dying, issues of equality — especially for women — and statements on behalf of those involved in the arts and in political life. The exception was for Planned Parenthood, for which she lobbied and composed cogent appeals.

--from the Web site of Bryn Mawr College

And I wonder if the Bushies know she was decidedly not a "person of faith":

"I'm an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for other people."

Indeed. She'll be missed.