On the very day that Donald Trump announced that, as president, he would wage war on pornography, a press release arrived on my desk from the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation. The foundation, it announced, is inviting nominations for the 2016 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards, which “honor individuals who have made significant contributions in the vital effort to protect and enhance First Amendment rights for all Americans.”

Looking over this year’s panel of “distinguished judges”—Erwin Chemerinsky, the left-wing law professor, a “campaign and communications strategist” named Lara Bergthold, and Davan Maharaj, current editor/publisher of the Los Angeles Times—I quickly concluded that my recommendations were unlikely to carry much weight at the Hefner Foundation. There is a distinctly political tone to the whole enterprise; and in any case, the Hefner Award is not exactly the Fields Medal or Nobel Prize: Past honorees include Michael Moore, Victor Navasky, and Bill Maher.