President Obama is Meryl Streep fanboy: ‘I have said publicly, I love Meryl Streep. I love her’

Meryl Streep, Stevie Wonder, Tom Brokaw, Marlo Thomas and Ethel Kennedy were among the famous figures who received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday.

They were among a group of 19 artists, activists and lawmakers receiving the award – the highest possible civilian honor. Stephen Sondheim was to be the 20th honoree but he could not attend and will be honored next year.

‘This is one of my favorite events,’ Obama said from the East Room. ‘Once a year, we set aside this event to celebrate people who have made America stronger and wiser and more humane and more beautiful with our higher civilian honor.’

It turns out that Obama has very good taste in movie queens as he positively gushed over three-time Oscar winner Streep during the presentation.

Said Obama: ‘I have said publicly, I love Meryl Streep. I love her. Her husband knows I love her, Michelle knows I love her. There’s nothing nothing either of them can do about it.

‘She inhabits her characters so fully and compassionately, saying it is the greatest gift of human beings that we have this power of empathy.

‘And off the screen as an advocate for women and girls, she uses that gift to help others write the stories of their choosing and to encourage greater empathy in the rest of us.

‘She is truly one of America’s leading ladies.’