September 6, 2018: Who Wrote the Anonymous New York Times Editorial?

 

9/6/18: We know the president insists the dishonest media employs made up sources to attack him. 

As the sun rises over Washington, I think we can assume the president will be calm and the mood at the White House will be “business as usual, let’s just keep on making America great.” Because the scathing editorial in The New York Times on September 5 was just “Fake News.”

Okay, maybe not.

 

Was the writer this guy: Vice President Mike Pence?

 

Stuck in hell with a flaming Donald J. Trump by his side. 

Trump is reportedly in a rage. His temper is “volcanic.” There’s pandemonium at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

There is talk among aides of hitching up everyone in the White House to lie detectors, only excluding Ivanka. 

The hunt for the person who talked to the Times is on and the president is said to have a list of a dozen prime suspects. 

As the hours pass the denials pile up. “I didn’t write it,” Vice President Jesus is first to say. We know that man cannot tell a lie, because if he does, he fears he will burn in hell for eternity and be stuck spending untold centuries with a flaming Donald J. Trump by his side.  “Not mine,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tells reporters. He’s traveling in India and it has to be embarrassing to have to address the topic. Defense Secretary Mattis is innocent. A Pentagon spokesperson says, “It was not his op-ed.” Attorney General Sessions says, through a spokesman, he didn’t write it. 

In his heart you figure he wishes he had.

 

By evening at least 24 cabinet members, ambassadors, and top administration officials have insisted they never put pen to paper. Even Melania issues a statement, saying the author of the piece is “sabotaging” the country. 

Pundits spend the day weighing possibilities. Who wrote it? Should the author have come out publicly? Is this “gutless” and “shameful” behavior? Is the writer a “quiet hero” sounding an alarm? 

The initial betting, even on Las Vegas betting sites, is that the anonymous author is really Mike Pence. The writer has used the word “lodestar,” a word the vice president often uses in speeches. 

 

“The president’s amorality.” 

Another expert points to a key passage: 

The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

 

The phrase “not moored” seems to hint that the writer is comfortable with nautical terms, perhaps someone who served in the Navy. 

Chief of Staff John Kelly, a former Marine??? 

Still, the bottom line is obvious. Someone at the top of the administration thinks the man in charge is a pyromaniac.

 

(In the days leading up to the 2020 election, Miles Taylor, a young official in the Department of Homeland Security and a Trump appointee, reveals himself to be the author. 

Like John Bolton, Trump’s by-that-time former National Security Advisor, Taylor says he will not be voting for Trump for president again.)