(I’m referring to his odd claim that Bush didn’t even know who Palin was when McCain chose her as his running mate. Few who repeated it in print seem to ask many questions about it; few seem to have bothered to do a quick Lexis-Nexus search to see if it the claim accorded with readily available records. The claim is preposterous on its surface. But if one is in doubt, a two minute web-search would uncover things like the LA Times posting of Aug 28, 2008 –immediately after the choice was announced–which ran a quick check and found 4 specific occasions on which Bush & Palin had met, including one earlier that month!)

As for this “snubbing” claim — a half hour researching the basis and history of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and esp. the handful of authors & folk in related fields to whom Bush awarded this distinction, would undercut the notion that Rowling might even have been under consideration. Just read the citations, which lay out the basis for their receiving the award, and you can see that Rowling’s work, as popular, positive and influential as it may be, does not make the sort or contribution that led to the honoring of a Harper Lee (who “helped focus the nation on the turbulent struggle for equality”) or David McCullough (for reminding Americans that “the laws we live by, the freedoms we enjoy, the institutions that we take for granted are all the work of other people who went before us”).

At any rate, Rowling’s work was being published DURING Bush’s Presidency. Perhaps she will one day be considered an appropriate recipient, but you shouldn’t expect that for some years, i.e.., only after its contribution has had time to become clear & well-established. That was, in fact, the case with Lee, McCullough and many others.