Obama lionizes JFK ahead of anniversary

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This article was published 21/11/2013 (4574 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Barack Obama laid a wreath at John F. Kennedy’s gravesite as a nation remembers the terrible day in Dallas a half-century ago Friday when he was assassinated. Obama also recognized a group of distinguished Americans — including Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey — with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, an award created by Kennedy.

Obama was joined at Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday by Clinton, and each president held hands with Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert F. Kennedy, as they climbed a flight of stairs to the burial site on a steep hillside overlooking the nation’s capital.

First lady Michelle Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton helped their husbands place a large wreath of white flowers in front of the roped-off gravesite of America’s 35th president, which is marked by an ever-burning flame.

Both couples placed their hands over their hearts as taps sounded near a U.S. flag at half-staff before greeting Kennedy relatives, including some who arrived in Obama’s motorcade, before Friday’s 50th anniversary of the assassination.

The day of tributes began at the White House, where Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 16 living and deceased Americans for their contributions in fields ranging from sports and entertainment to science and public service.

“These are the men and women who in their extraordinary lives remind us all of the beauty of the human spirit, the values that define us as Americans, the potential that lives inside of all of us,” Obama said.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, daughter Chelsea Clinton and film director Steven Spielberg were among scores of people seated in the White House East Room for the ceremony, which Obama said is “one of my favourite events every year.”

Kennedy established the modern version of the medal but was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, weeks before he was to honour the inaugural group of recipients. Hundreds of notable figures since have received the honour.

Obama continued to lionize the slain president Wednesday evening at a dinner honouring the medal’s recipients. At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Obama was introduced by Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, whose mother, Caroline Kennedy, is Obama’s newly confirmed ambassador to Japan.

“He reminded us that everyone has the capacity to explore, to imagine and to give back to our great nation no matter the path we choose,” the younger Kennedy said of his grandfather.

Obama said Kennedy stays in America’s imagination not because he was assassinated, but because he embodied the character of the people he led. He said Kennedy was defiant in the face of impossible odds and determined to make the world anew.

“This is a legacy of a man who could have retreated to a life of luxury and ease, but he chose to live a life in the arena,” Obama said. “Sailing sometimes against the wind, sometimes with it.”

— The Associated Press