STUDY REVIEWS MEDAL OF FREEDOM AWARDEES

President Obama was having some fun with Barbra Streisand as he awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House last month.

Reading her biography from prepared remarks, he came to the part that noted she had grown up in a middle-class Jewish family. Then he stopped and turned to her. “I didn’t know you were Jewish, Barbra,” he said with mock astonishment.

In a time of perpetual terrorism, war and crisis, Mr. Obama seemed to be enjoying a rare opportunity to deliver good news. Ms. Streisand was one of 17 people he honored that day with the nation’s highest civilian award. Indeed, Mr. Obama has come to enjoy his power to issue the medal so much that he has awarded more than any other president.

With November’s ceremony, Mr. Obama brought to 94 the number of medals he has awarded, passing Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, according to a new study. With a year still to go in office, it is a fair bet he will add more. And why not? It is one exercise of unilateral executive power that draws little or no complaint from Congress or the courts.

“This is a fun kind of busy right here,” Mr. Obama, perpetually busy, said as he opened last month’s ceremony.

Under the executive order that established it, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is bestowed at the president’s discretion to “any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution” to national security, world peace or “cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

The medal’s history dates to 1963, when John F. Kennedy inaugurated the honor. In the years after World War II, an earlier version, called simply the Medal of Freedom, was issued to those who had performed a service in war or for national security and was handed out not just by presidents but a variety of government officials. Kennedy wanted something broader, a way of marking contributions not just to security but to the arts, academia and public service — and reserved only for the president to bestow.

A study to be published soon in the New England Journal of Political Science examined the first half-century of the medal, from 1963 to 2013, and found that 27 percent of them went to figures from politics or public service; 15 percent to artists, actors and musicians; and 14 percent to leaders in academia or science. Nearly 10 percent of medals were awarded posthumously (like to Yogi Berra most recently), and nearly 7 percent went to foreigners (Nelson Mandela, Tony Blair).

At times, presidents have reached out across the aisle: Reagan awarded the medal to Eunice Kennedy Shriver, from the nation’s most prominent Democratic dynasty. Mr. Clinton gave one to Bob Dole as a consolation prize just two months after beating him in the 1996 election. George W. Bush honored Donna E. Shalala, the former health and services secretary. Mr. Obama selected his predecessor’s father, the first George Bush. But those are the exceptions, according to the study.

“Overwhelmingly, Republican presidents tend to bestow medals on Republican elected officials, and the same thing for the Democrats,” said Kyle C. Kopko, a professor at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania and one of the authors of the study. “Even though there might be some bipartisanship in recognizing public officials on the other side of the aisle, still by far they’re recognizing folks inside their own political party.”

To read the complete article, see:
Presidential Medal of Freedom Says Something About Presenter, Too (www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/us/politics/presidential-medal-of-freedom-says-something-about-presenter-too.html)

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