This article appeared in The Onion, but it is so close to truth that it might as well have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or the Washington Post.

 

The only fiction in it is the pretense that it was written by Jimmy Carter. It was not.

 

The essence is the question, why was I forced to sell the family peanut farm when I became president when Donald Trump is allowed to maintain control of his far-flung business empire and not even to disclose what businesses he is invested in?

 

Seriously, it was just a few fields and a warehouse, and you idiots still appointed a special prosecutor and spent six months investigating it.

 

Not a day goes by when I don’t think about what life would be like if I still had my peanut farm. I miss it so much. I miss feeling the sun on my face. I miss the earth in my hands. Sometimes, I’d go out to the fields before dawn. I’d watch the sun come up, watch it cast golden light on my plants, row by row. It was so calm; so quiet. Those were some of the best days of my life. It sure would’ve been nice to live out the rest of my years there, but I had to do what was right. I suppose only some of us have to.

 

God, I loved that peanut farm!

 

And where were my conflicts of interest, exactly? Seriously, do enlighten me, America, because I honestly have no idea. Did you worry I might be cutting deals in back rooms with the peanut butter lobby? Or that I might be too busy at harvest time to focus on the economy or the Middle East? Apparently, you did, and almost obsessively. Meanwhile, your new president holds a lease from the federal government to operate a $200 million hotel six blocks from the White House. I mean, come on!

 

Maybe I’m just a sucker. Apparently, all I needed to do was hand off control of the farm to my family. If I’d staged an elaborate song and dance about distancing myself—whatever that means—from all the day-to-day planting, picking, and salting, maybe I could have kept my peanut farm with the full blessing of you, the American people.