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Obama gives Presidential Medal of Freedom to Michael Jordan, Newton Minow

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For the last time before he leaves office, President Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Tuesday to a glittering assembly of Silicon Valley, Hollywood, sports and rock stars.

Among the honorees were Michael Jordan and Democratic activist and Chicago attorney Newton Minow. Also honored were singers Bruce Springsteen and Diana Ross, actors Tom Hanks and Robert De Niro, philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates, and basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Rounds of applause and laughter rocked the East Room as Obama bestowed the nation’s highest civilian honor on 21 legends, two posthumously, in an hourlong ceremony.

Obama quipped that great actors were in the room, “like the guy from ‘Space Jam,'” a reference to a comedy starring Jordan that mixed live action with Looney Tunes cartoon characters.

The president called Jordan a man who epitomized greatness, saying that’s why people talk about “the Michael Jordan of neurosurgery” or “the Michael Jordan of rabbis” or “the Michael Jordan of outrigger canoeing.”

“Michael Jordan is the Michael Jordan of greatness. He is the definition of somebody who is so good at what they do that everybody recognizes them. That’s pretty rare,” Obama said.

Talking about Minow, Obama said he was the only one of the honorees who was “present on my first date with Michelle” — the couple ran into their then-boss at the law firm of Sidley Austin while out at a movie.

Others decorated included actress Cicely Tyson, comedian Ellen DeGeneres, actor Robert Redford, architect Frank Gehry, Vietnam Veterans Memorial designer Maya Lin, baseball announcer Vin Scully and “Saturday Night Live” producer Lorne Michaels.

Gehry, one of the world’s leading “starchitects,” counts as top projects the Walter Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park.

It’s unlikely President-elect Donald Trump would give the award to Michaels. On Sunday, Trump complained about his portrayal on “SNL” from the night before, tweeting, “It is a totally one-sided, biased show—nothing funny at all. Equal time for us?”

Springsteen also may find himself on the outs in the Trump administration. He has lent his star power to several Democratic nominees for the White House, most recently performing at an election eve rally for Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia that drew Obama and the first lady.

Obama conceded the obvious about the suit-clad New Jersey rocker. “I am the president but he is ‘The Boss,'” he said.

Many of the celebrities had publicly backed Obama or his policies over the years — and he acknowledged the debt even as he hailed their contributions to American life, arts and sciences.

“Everybody on this stage has touched me in a very powerful, personal way,” Obama said.

Jordan lays claim to six championships, all during the 1990s with the Chicago Bulls. He now is owner and chairman of the Charlotte Hornets.

Minow, now senior counsel at Sidley Austin, is best known for decrying bad television as a “vast wasteland” after he was appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in 1961.

Other honorees included two giants of science — mathematician and software pioneer Margaret Hamilton, and nuclear physicist Richard Garwin, who helped design the first hydrogen bomb as well as the MRI, a critical tool in modern medicine.

The medal was awarded posthumously to Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet tribal leader from Montana who led a class-action lawsuit against the Interior Department that restored tribal homelands to the Blackfeet Nation and other tribes in a settlement worth $3.4 billion.

Another posthumous award was given to Rear Adm. Grace Hopper, the so-called “first lady of software” who was at the forefront of computer and programming development from the 1940s to the 1980s.

The constellation of stars made for a high-wattage prequel to another tradition on tap for the president Wednesday. He is to pardon a pair of turkeys in a Thanksgiving eve ritual, an event he never seemed to relish.

kskiba@chicagotribune.com

Twitter@KatherineSkiba