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President Obama: It's my greatest privilege as President to honor the five men
and women who have given our nation the extraordinary gift
of the arts.
In their own way, each of these honorees help us understand the
human experience, to illuminate our past,
to help us understand our present,
and to give us the courage to face our future.
Paul McCartney: It's fantastic, you know.
When we started off as kids in Liverpool,
we didn't think of it as culture,
but we've come a long way, you know,
and it's now recognized along with music from that generation,
country music, rock and roll, blues.
It's now recognized as culture.
So it's great.
It's just great to be part of it and to be honored in this way.
Check it out.
Bill Jones: An artist of my temperament, the art comes out of a place of
wanting to be embraced, which I do feel embraced tonight.
But also comes out of a feeling you have to push
against something, a world that does not understand and
maybe can never understand.
And those two polarities make a heat,
and that heat turns into work.
Maybe more precisely, it turns into a whole
attitude towards work.
Merle Haggard: Well, it's quite wonderful, absolutely the ultimate,
I guess, of all awards.
It talks about people that affect the culture,
and I was proud to be selected as one of those.
President Obama: In a day, an age, when so many country singers claim
to be rambling, gambling outlaws, Merle actually is one.
(laughter and applause)
Growing up in New Jersey, Jerry Herman was determined to be a
song writer and he's still the only composer and lyricist who
have had three shows on Broadway at the same time.
(applause)
Michelle and I love Oprah Winfrey.
Oprah's gift as a host, as a producer,
as an Oscar-nominated actress, has always been her ability to
relate to her audience, to laugh with us, to try with us,
to draw us in and connect our most fervent hopes and deepest
fears to her own.
The reason we share ourselves with Oprah is because she shares
herself with us.
The arts are necessary.
They are a necessary part of our lives.
The men and women here tonight embody that ideal.
Tonight, it is my honor, to offer them the appreciation
of a grateful nation.
Billy Jones: This award, this whole evening, has thrown all of my thinking
about the struggle of art; it's thrown it into kind of a relief.
And now I have to think about that when I speak to a new group
of young artists, what does it mean?
Is an artist solitary and misunderstood,
or can an artist who keeps their nose to the grindstone and their
heart open, can they meet the President someday?