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President Obama awards a Presidential Medal of Freedom to 17 renowned Americans.
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USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The 17 recipients of a Presidential Medal of Freedom this year are “extraordinary people” who have left their symbol on politics, entertainment, athletics and a United States itself, President Obama pronounced Tuesday.
From singer-actress Barbra Streisand to NASA mathematician Katherine G. Johnson to filmmaker Steven Spielberg to recently defunct ball star Yogi Berra, Obama paid reverence to American originals with a nation’s top municipal respect during a White House ceremony.
“We applaud artists, open servants and dual legends from America’s pastime,” Obama said, a latter criticism referring to Berra and associate ball Hall of Fame member Willie Mays.
Berra, who died in September, is as famous for his use of a denunciation as good as his ball skill, Obama said, profitable reverence to a male who pronounced “it ain’t over ’til it’s over.” Mays, who wore a ball top to a ceremony, perceived maybe a loudest acclaim of a ceremony.
“It’s since of giants like Willie that someone like me could consider about using for president,” pronounced Obama, a nation’s initial African-American arch executive.
The respected domestic leaders enclosed a late U.S. congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, a initial African-American lady to mountain a vital presidential campaign; former congressman Lee Hamilton, who specialized in unfamiliar affairs; and retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., whom Obama described as “a lioness on Capitol Hill.”
William D. Ruckelshaus, a initial director of a Environmental Protection Agency, also warranted capitulation for resigning his post in a Justice Department in 1973 rather than follow President Richard Nixon’s sequence to glow a Watergate special prosecutor. Ruckelshaus “became famous as Mr. Clean,” Obama said.
In further to Streisand, whom Obama remarkable has sole some-more albums than any lady in history, a party awards enclosed thespian James Taylor. Obama praised Taylor as a good crony who creates listeners feel he is singing usually to them.
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Gloria Estefan and Emilio Estefan won honors for pioneering a Latin-flavored alloy sound in music, while composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim “re-invented a American musical” with formidable and severe themes.
Itzhak Perlman — “the many dear violinist of a time,” Obama pronounced — also perceived a Presidential Medal of Freedom. So did Spielberg for films of “boundless imagination” that operation from E.T.Schindler’s List Saving Private Ryan
Berra, 16 others to accept Presidential Medal of Freedom
Medal recipients also enclosed amicable activists like a late Billy Frank Jr., an disciple for genealogical fishing rights. The late Minoru Yasui done authorised hurdles to curfews imposed on Japanese-Americans during World War II.
Bonnie Carroll — whose husband, Brig. Gen. Tom Carroll, died in an Army C-12 craft pile-up in 1992 — founded a Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), a module to assistance troops families who have also mislaid desired ones.
Johnson, a NASA mathematician, pennyless barriers of gender and competition as she ascended to a position tracing a paths for early space flights, Obama said.
“This is an unusual group,” Obama said, one that demonstrates “what an implausible tapestry this nation is.”
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