Mr. Trump, Sir, if Anyone Deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom, It’s Me
It is high time a Blogger is recognized for their service to this nation.
Earlier today, President Trump announced his intention to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Devin Nunes, a Republican congressman from California who used to represent my hometown until redistricting shuffled things up a few years back.
If you are a Discourse Blog reader or someone who has been relatively aware of politics for the past few years you probably know Devin Nunes as the guy who did a bunch of lying for Trump during the Mueller investigation and then tried to sue some guy pretending to be a cow on Twitter. Is this behavior deserving of the nation's highest civilian award? Well, that's not for me to say. However, it is for me to say: I would like one too.
Think about it: is the work that Nunes did as head of the House Intelligence Committee any more valuable to the success and freedom of the country than the work that I do, as a blogger for this website and many others? Some partisan cads may say yes, but I say no. It is high time in these United States that a Blogger is recognized for their work with something other than a massive advance from Substack. Why not a Presidential Medal of Freedom? Why not for me?
Because let's be honest: Trump is really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Over the next week Trump will reportedly also present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rep. Jim Jordan, who is another guy who loved to lie for him and also reportedly looked the other way during a massive sex abuse scandal while coaching wrestling for Ohio State in the 80s and 90s. I have done neither of those things, although I was neither alive nor a wrestling coach in the 80s, to be fair.
The medal, which I am assured by Wikipedia and the Force of American Norms and Such is Very Prestigious, is supposed to be awarded to "individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the security or national interests of America, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors." Well. Is Discourse Blog not an exceptional contribution to a private endeavor? We're a corporation and everything!
Some may say that giving the nation's highest honor to a blogger would be an insult to all those who have received the award before, like Yo-Yo Ma and also Senator Orrin Hatch. They may say that I, as a lowly blogger, do not deserve the Prestigious Award that is only given to people who are the finest examples of American People, like Bill Cosby and the guy George W. Bush put in charge of helping Halliburton thoroughly loot Iraq after we invaded them. They could say, for instance, that my place in this list of Hallowed Heroes revealed the arbitrary and fundamentally meaningless nature of the award, that its place in history is only as another bauble in the endless parade of meaningless pageantry that makes up our city on a hill.
To all of this I offer only one rebuttal: c'monnnn man. Lemme have it. Mr. President, just do it and be a legend. My schedule is pretty free the next few weeks.