presidential medal of honor for Ali the boxer

Submitted by gail hiebert (United States), Jan 31, 2006 at 10:20

It's a well known fact that presidents do things that don't make sense. These could be actions that are related to war, presidential pardons for criminals that should never be pardonned, and giving medals of honor to people of dubious character. Why is the President placed in this position? It has to do with public donations to the political organizations that presidents find themselves representing, and to a blind trust they must place (since they can't possibly oversee all things in government) in their aids and assistants, from the secretary of state to the person in charge of submitting names for the medals of honor.

The speech given at these occasions (not to be taken seriously) are written by public writers who are paid to say something (hopefully nice and acceptable to the recipient) and has nothing to do with reality. If the President could ever speak freely (strange constraint in a country that hold free speech as one of its Hallmarks of democrary) he would tell it like it is. He knows very well that such blunt or honest comment would gain acrimonious charges against him and his party to infinity. Therefore, with the choice of two evils, the presidents reads the 'script' prepared by an aid who has public relations as a priority, supported by the secretary of the party who has only the holy dollar as thei god, and in the real world, everyone know is a bunch of crap. Not too many people accept these comments and other political comments seriously.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".