The awards ceremony next year for President Obama‘s 15 newly designated Medal of Freedom recipients, named tonight, will bring together some strange bedfellows.
Here are the White House’s descriptions of two disparate awardees:
American artist Jasper Johns has produced a distinguished body of work
dealing with themes of perception and identity since the mid-1950s. Among his best known works are depictions of familiar objects and signs,
including flags, targets and numbers. He has incorporated innovative
approaches to materials and techniques, and his work has influenced pop,
minimal, and conceptual art.Stan “The Man” Musial is a baseball legend and Hall of Fame first
baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals. Musial played 22 seasons for the
Cardinals from 1941 to 1963. A 24-time All-Star selection, Musial
accumulated 3,630 hits and 475 home runs during his career, was named
the National League’s Most Valuable Player three times, and was a member
of three World Series championship teams. Musial also served as the
Cardinals’ general manager in 1967, when the team once again won the
World Series.
Other all-stars in the distinguished group include cellist Yo-Yo Ma, author Maya Angelou, former Boston Celtics captain Bill Russell, mega-investor/philanthropist Warren Buffett and two heads of state—current German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former U.S. President George H.W. Bush (father of Obama’s immediate predecessor).
Last time around, Obama described his Medal of Freedom designees as “agent[s] of change” who “saw an imperfect world and set about improving it.” This time, perhaps reflecting Obama’s disillusionment about his own ability to effectuate “change we can believe in,” it’s less about “breaking down barriers,” more about making “our country and our world a better place.”