Historians (among others) honored at White House ceremony
"Sorry I'm a little late. I had this thing I had to do," joked President Obama, just before an afternoon ceremony at the White House on Thursday in which luminaries in the arts and academics were presented with the highest medals for achievements in their fields....
The humanities citations went to prizewinning authors and historians Robert A. Caro ("The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power, Means of Ascent and Master of the Senate"), Annette Gordon-Reed ("The Hemingses of Monticello"), David Levering Lewis ("W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963") and William H. McNeill ("Plagues and Peoples"). The list also includes speechwriter and lawyer Theodore Sorensen, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Philippe de Montebello and philanthropist Albert H. Small, as well as Wiesel, founding chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the author of "Night," whom the president gave his own big hug....
Delivering remarks at the end of the ceremony, Obama said that all of the honorees had touched his life in some way, including Caro, whose book "The Power Broker," about urban planner Robert Moses, the president had read when he was 22 and found "mesmerizing." And speaking of Sorenson, who once wrote speeches for President John F. Kennedy, Obama joked that he "had used up all the good lines for everybody."
Read entire article at WaPo
The humanities citations went to prizewinning authors and historians Robert A. Caro ("The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power, Means of Ascent and Master of the Senate"), Annette Gordon-Reed ("The Hemingses of Monticello"), David Levering Lewis ("W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963") and William H. McNeill ("Plagues and Peoples"). The list also includes speechwriter and lawyer Theodore Sorensen, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Philippe de Montebello and philanthropist Albert H. Small, as well as Wiesel, founding chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the author of "Night," whom the president gave his own big hug....
Delivering remarks at the end of the ceremony, Obama said that all of the honorees had touched his life in some way, including Caro, whose book "The Power Broker," about urban planner Robert Moses, the president had read when he was 22 and found "mesmerizing." And speaking of Sorenson, who once wrote speeches for President John F. Kennedy, Obama joked that he "had used up all the good lines for everybody."