Today, President Barak Obama presented the Medal of Freedom to fourteen outstanding individuals. Since this may not have been covered by your television program of choice, here is the list:

President George H. W. Bush.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Rep. John Lewis (D-GA).
John H. Adams, co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Poet Maya Angelou.
Investor Warren Buffett.
Artist Jasper Johns.
Holocaust survivor and author Gerda Weissmann Klein.
The late Dr. Tom Little, an optometrist and aid worker murdered by the Taliban last year in Afghanistan.
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Civil rights activist Sylvia Mendez.
Baseball great Stan Musial.
Basketball great Bill Russell.
Jean Kennedy Smith, sister of President John F. Kennedy and founder of VSA, a non-profit organization affiliated with the John F. Kennedy Center.
Former AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney.

Please notice the varied qualifications, areas of specialization, and politics represented by the recipients. Here are people of quality, deserving of our thanks and appreciation.