It is a constant source of amazement that no matter how low our former president can go in his public acts and pronouncements, he can always go even lower. It’s as if just when we think he’s hit the basement floor and can go no deeper that he discovers a new sub-basement and jumps right in with both feet, heel spurs and all.

In one of his more recent contretemps (I hesitate to say his last contretemps because you never know what trouble he can get himself into between the time this is written and when it appears in print!), he made some comments comparing (and equating) the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, with the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military  award.

The sound bite currently making the rounds on mainstream media is from a few days ago as our former president talked about the award of the medal to Miriam Adelson back in 2018. Speaking of the Medal of Freedom and comparing it to the Medal of Honor, our former president is quoted as saying, “… it’s actually much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead. She gets it and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman, and they’re rated equal.”

No harm to Miriam, who is currently a 78-year-old healthy, beautiful woman and who had introduced the former president at the event where he made the remarks. But things are not equal.

Miriam is the widow of Sheldon Adelson, who passed away in 2021. Together, they had – and have – more money than God. (Current estimate by Forbes for Miriam and family? $28 billion – with a “b.”) And you, dear reader, if you squandered away the vacation money on the first night at the craps table at the Sands, or later the Venetian, you have contributed your mite to that wealth.

Nobody begrudges Sheldon and Miriam’s success.  They can spend their money as they want, and they have, with many goodly causes being the beneficiaries.

They can also spend their money for political purposes. Thanks to the porous nature of our federal campaign finance laws, the practical effect is a license to give as much as you want, with no upper limit.

In the case of Sheldon and Miriam, according to reports from federal records, in the period 2010 through 2020, the Adelsons donated more than $500 million to Republican party campaigns and super PACs.

In the years since Sheldon’s death, Miriam has continued her politically motivated philanthropies towards the Republican party in general, and Donald Trump specifically. In May 2024, Politico reported that Mrs. Adelson would be donating $90 million dollars to a Super Pac supporting our former president and, as of this week, news reports quoted Adelson’s political aide saying that she is going to do “whatever it takes” to assure the GOP candidate’s success.

Again, under current law, there is nothing illegal about any of this. I only use the numbers as a setup for the following question – and remember we’re talking about our former president here. Which do you suppose had more to do with Miriam’s Presidential Medal of Freedom? The good works … or the political contributions?

You be the judge.

On the other hand, with the Congressional Medal of Honor, I, like many of my generation, have grade school, high school, and college friends and acquaintances who, even if they did not receive the Medal of Honor, still lie quietly in their caskets (if there was anything to send home), or live their lives with prosthetics, or depend on prescribed (or non-prescribed) drugs to get through a day. Some relive the horrors of their experiences nightly. Those no longer with us remain in our memories, forever in their late teens or early twenties.

These folks, the injured and the lost, cannot hope to match the monetary contributions that might lead to a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

All they had to contribute to their country was their body when called to defend it, and, in all too many instances, the only life they had to give when that defense required it.

Equal?

Not even close.

On Friday, the Veterans of Foreign Wars noted their shock at what they called the former president’s “asinine comments” that so “crassly characterize the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives above and beyond the call of duty.” Many of us agree our former Commander in Chief should retract his insult to all who have worn their country’s uniform. Most of us know he won’t.

If you ever wore a uniform and have since added a MAGA hat to your current “uniform,” might I suggest you find the nearest trash fire and contribute your hat to that.