Sitting Duck Award for 2016 – It’s Huuuuuuge!

The National Society of Newspaper Columnists has given its 2016 Sitting Duck Award to GOP presumptive presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.

“Much like in the Republican primaries this year, the columnists’ vote for Trump was no contest,” said NSNC president Lisa Smith Molinari. “His margin was huuuuge.” The society met in Los Angeles over the weekend.

The columnists give this annual award to the person who can be the low-hanging-fruit subject of a column even on a slow news day. As Molinari noted, “Trump pretty much has guaranteed that there hasn’t been a slow news day for the last year. He’s been an astonishing gift to columnists. As creative as we tend to be, we never could have dreamed up someone as fascinating as Trump has been. He’s been the daily head-on collision that we and our readers have been unable not to gawk at.”

Trump will receive no trophy, though the NSNC expects him to add the honor to his online campaign bio next to the names of his previous wives and descriptions of his several bankruptcies.

Past winners:

1991 –  Roseanne  Barr, for her screeching rendition of the National Anthem
1992 – Millie, Barbara Bush’s canine book author “that earned $889,176 in royalties, yet never saw a penny of it.”
1995 – Kato Kaelin, O.J. Simpson’s often clueless houseguest, was named the best  subject for a newspaper columnist without a clue on what to write.
1996 – Joe Klein, who confessed to writing “Primary Colors.”
1997 – Joe Camel, who was banished from the advertising world a few days after the  conference ended.
2000 – Baseball’s John Rocker
2001 – The FBI
2002 – Attorney General John Ashcroft
2003 – Martha Stewart
2004 – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
2005 – Columnists in general for ethical lapses
2006 – Syndicated columnist Ann Coulter “for cheapening political discourse in America”
2007 – U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — “We gave it to him, but we can’t remember why”
2008 – Former President Bill Clinton, spouse of one of the presidential candidates
2009 – Presidential Candidate & Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin “for showing it’s hard to put your best foot forward when it’s in your mouth”
2010 – BP executives, who made up more unbelievable stories than a newsroom full of columnists on a slow news day
2011 – The Body Politic — rather, the consider attention that some politicians (and most of the public) devote to their bodies’ wants
2012 – The U.S. economy — Nobody likes it, and you can find statistics to back up anything you want to say about it
2013 – Privacy — with authorized federal “data mining,” the government already knew that
2014 – Drones — columnists could run or totter but ultimately not hide from such unmanned craft, the Predator to Amazon’s promised delivery vehicle
2015 – Donald Trump — Like a politically ambitious four-year cicada, the mogul not only passes but surpasses the duck test quadrennially.

2016 – Donald Trump