We here at the Washington Free Beacon didn't need another reason to love Dave Portnoy.
The Barstool Sports founder frequently puts the fake news media on blast and publicly shames employees for tardiness. He loves pizza and day drinking, and he has the best Boston accent this side of Ben Affleck.
But while we've always been yuge fans of El Presidente, our admiration reached new heights this year.
It started in September, when Portnoy gave Americans a look at the Washington Post's partisan hackery. Portnoy livestreamed a confrontation with Post reporter Emily Heil, whom he caught trying to get sponsors of his One Bite Pizza Fest to criticize him so that she would have spicy quotes for a hit piece.
The sponsors didn't bite, and Portnoy emerged victorious, leaving a thoroughly embarrassed Heil to slink away, having learned an important lesson: You come for the king, you best not miss.
Everybody knows the rules.
Hot on the heels of his successful event, Davey Day Trader set himself apart from other media moguls by swiftly condemning Hamas's "disgusting" Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.
"They should be disgusting for every human regardless of race or religion," Portnoy said hours after terrorists invaded the Jewish state.
Portnoy remained a voice of moral clarity in December, when he declared he would no longer hire students from Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, or MIT, after the presidents of those schools refused during a disastrous congressional hearing to condemn anti-Semitism.
"If you can't condemn genocide," Portnoy said, "then you don't deserve to be in a position of power."
We couldn't agree more.
Dave, we're happy to raise a High Noon in honor of your efforts to fight ignorance and injustice while providing America with top-notch entertainment. And we're even happier to name you a Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year.
