President Bush bestowed the nation’s highest civilian honor — the Presidential Medal of Freedom — on 11 winners this month, recognizing their exceptional meritorious service in fields ranging from nuclear physics to cooking. At a time in Washington when many are preoccupied with attacking failures and casting blame, it’s refreshing to pause and celebrate the achievements of this group of honorees, which includes Edward Teller, Charlton Heston, James Q. Wilson, and Julia Child.

Mr. Teller was honored for his contributions to American national defense during World War II and the Cold War. Mr. Teller’s work in creating the first thermonuclear hydrogen bomb and his strong advocacy of the Strategic Defense Initiative — “Star Wars” — helped lead America to victory in the Cold War. His testimony was instrumental in convincing President Reagan to move forward with a space-based system to defend the nation from attack by ballistic missiles. Also, as a member of the Manhattan Project, the Hungarian-born physicist played a key role in America’s race to develop the atomic bomb before the Germans during World War II. His calculations at Los Alamos proved that an uncontrolled nuclear fusion reaction — such as the one created by an atomic bomb — would not continue indefinitely, but would destroy only a limited area.

Charlton Heston was honored for his career both as one of the most celebrated actors of Hollywood’s golden era and as a valiant defender of the Constitution. Mr. Heston’s early support of civil rights and of the Second Amendment earned him the role of American hero both on and off the stage. He served as a sergeant in the Army Air Corp. for three years, stationed at the Aleutian Islands during World War II. He marched with Martin Luther King Jr. to the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. He was president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1966 to 1971. Versed in the classical epics of his films, which so often highlight victory as based on the individual hero’s strength and agency, he recognized the significance of the Second Amendment right to bear arms and became its most vociferous defender. Mr. Heston became president of the National Rifle Association in 1994. “I simply cannot stand by and watch a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States come under attack from those who either can’t understand it, don’t like the sound of it, or find themselves too philosophically squeamish to see why it remains the first among equals,” Mr. Heston said in his famous 1999 speech at Harvard. “Because it is the right we turn to when all else fails.”

Professor Wilson was honored for his explorations of the nature of human morality, government, and criminal justice issues. His works have rendered him one of America’s leading social commentators on issues ranging from crime to family structure. Most notably, Mr. Wilson’s “Broken Windows”theory of crime — developed and articulated together with another academic, George Kelling — helped police departments across the country to develop effective community policing initiatives, emphasizing increased foot patrol. “Broken windows” policing was first implemented in New York by William Bratton, who cracked down on graffiti and turnstile jumpers in the city’s subway system. When Rudolph Giuliani was elected mayor of New York, he launched a similar “Broken Glass” initiative that correlated with a sharp decrease in the city’s crime rate. Mr. Wilson’s book, “The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened Families,” links increases in drug use, drop-out rates and teenage pregnancy to the “erosion of family life.”We’re proud to count him as an occasional contributor to these pages.

Finally, Julia Child, the famed “Master Chef,” was honored for revolutionizing the way Americans cook, encouraging her culinary apostles to “enjoy food.”You might not expect Ms. Child’s association with both PBS and the French to endear her to the Bush administration, but in her television shows and writing, she displayed a quintessentially American zest for life. Challenging the trend toward health food, Ms. Child’s recipes unabashedly call for butter and red meat. According to “Harley Hahn’s Archive of Memorable Quotes by Women,” Ms. Child once said, “If you have enough butter, anything is good.”