Joseph Lowery

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 16 people, including political ally Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, ...

Some post-Inauguration predictions: Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma will refuse all future cold-weather bookings. Aretha Franklin will now be known as "The Queen of Soul...and Funky Hats." Rev. Lowery will be invited to throw out the first pitch at the home openers of the Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland Indians. Jacques Chirac will not be renting Cujo anytime soon. George Bush will not be on Scooter Libby's Christmas card list this year. In the Dick-Cheney-in-a-wheelchair-movie-reference-derby, "Mr. Potter" will beat out "Ernst Stavro Blofeld." The swearing in will not be the last time President Obama and Chief Justice Roberts are not on the same page.

The celebrities who have descended on the town provide a sharp contrast to the old, stodgy (and let's face it, overly white) days of being overrun by the helmet heads of the GOP.

At his press conference on Thursday, Barack Obama for the first time addressed the flurry of protest that has erupted over the choice of Rick Warren t...