@chrisstiles Does that make any sense? I.e. what would the response to such a putative 'self-outing' be? Of course what the author expects is more important in this context than what is actually likely...
That depends on what they wish to do next, doesn't it? See James Comey's transformation into a hero of a particular type of liberal. I can see folk vying to be the next Joseph Welch
I think the motivation of the NYT editorial staff may tell us more than the motivation of the anonymous whistleblower.
I agree with AFZ about the surprise in finding this article on the Fox News website. But it was a good surprise. There have always been a few serious journalists on Fox News, even if the majority of presenters are blatant propagandists.
Judith Miller's article is worth a read. And the following quotation seemed to me to be eminently reasonable.
Some say the essay was the pathetic “me too” effort by The New York Times to match the scoops in Woodward’s book published in The Washington Post.
Others say the op-ed just reiterated what most people who have been watching this White House closely already know: This is a president like no other. The op-ed reinforced the book’s disturbing portrait of a vain, venal, volatile man who has a vague relationship with the truth in a nation’s capital that has become “crazytown.”
That is not new. But the fact that someone senior in the Trump administration claims to be part of an internal “resistance” dedicated to thwarting parts of the president’s agenda and protecting the nation “against his worst inclinations” is news. So is the fact that the author of the op-ed was willing to say so in one of the nation’s most influential newspapers. (Italics mine)
In my view, with some reservations, those sentiments merited publication.
I don't think the NYT needed to know the motivations of the whistleblower to decide that those two facts made for a newsworthy article.
Bad choice of words. I think it tells us that the motivation of the whistleblower probably didn't factor into the NYT decision to publish. Once they realised that the story the whistleblower told was pretty much on all fours with the Woodward book, they were pretty safe as to fact.
What puzzles me is what is expected to be gained by publishing that people are removing documents so Trump cannot sign them. Surely the response from Trump would be to ensure that this doesn't happen any more? Thus the disclosure would strengthen his administration, not weaken it.
I think the story was probably pre-Kelly. Reince Priebus was a pretty useless Chief of Staff and by all accounts, exercised little if any control over the flow of people and paper in and out of the Oval Office. Also by all accounts, Kelly took a much stronger grip. Any Chief of Staff worthy of the name would want to do that.
I have no doubt that Kelly does exercise some effective control over the flow now. He's the prime gatekeeper. Would Kelly have stopped that piece of paper getting close to Trump's pen? I think so. I certainly hope so.
Bad choice of words. I think it tells us that the motivation of the whistleblower probably didn't factor into the NYT decision to publish. Once they realised that the story the whistleblower told was pretty much on all fours with the Woodward book, they were pretty safe as to fact.
Got you. And yep, completely agree.
This is partly why I am intrigued by the motivation of the writer as it's much less clear cut, in my view. And I strongly suspect that the writer may well be mistaken in what they perceive to be the effects... But here I am very much speculating.
It's all breathless speculation on all the questions people are discussing here, just as most of the commentary online and in the media is all speculation. As Ohher said up thread, it will all come out eventually - the writer, the extent to which Trump is in on it, the actions of the NYT. I'm as keenly engaged as the rest of you mind. Its almost as funny as the recent Aussie leadership coup. Fair dinkum, the Liberal party room is looking like a murder scene in that British torture porn series Wire in the Blood.
I saw some speculation that Kavanaugh has been caught making a misleading statement. Is evidence given under oath before the Senate? If so, and it was an incontrovertible whopper, he surely fails the character test for being any sort of judicial officer.
The difference is that the op-ed is itself evidence of the opinion of the anonymous source. It could not have been published in that form without the agreement of the whistleblower. A story based on statements from an anonymous whistleblower doesn't have the same impact. People are used to stories quoting "senior sources".
So far as credibility goes, the NYT did put their credibility on the line. Time will tell whether that was wise or not. I think they will be OK.
Is it the job of a media outlet to give voice to anonymous people to spout off? Either the person takes responsibility and signs their name, or they get a blog. The aim of the NYT may have been to damage the President, but overall I think it's done more damage to the office of the presidency. It is certainly grist to his "Deep State" argument.
(As such I find myself unable to rule out it being a set-up ("hah hah, look how easy it is to fool the failing NYT!"). The only reason I don't really entertain this is that I don't think Trump's ego could bear the prospect of orchestrating negative press about himself, even for future gains. If he was still close to Steve Bannon I would think it would be something the latter would love to pull off, though).
I wondered if Watergate being exposed by the media is a parallel situation but on second thoughts that was journalists doing their job rather than someone using the media to do their dirty work.
Another media difference between Watergate and now is that Congress was willing to have public (often televised) hearings into the matter (and other matters of executive oversight). So far what little questioning Congress has done of Trump administration officials has been done closed session.
To add to your intrigue, guess what I found on the Fox News website?
OMG, that's hilarious!!! For those unfamiliar with her work, Judith Miller is a former New York Times reporter who published a number of (largely stenographic) stories from anonymous White House sources alleging that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, government officials made remarkable claims. Dick Cheney insisted that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague a few months before Atta flew a plane into the World Trade Center. (That meeting didn’t happen.) Condoleezza Rice also saw ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. (Despite all evidence to the contrary, Rice was still saying this in 2006.) But the biggest whopper was Miller’s claim about Iraq’s intentions to develop weapons of mass destruction.
As an embedded reporter in Iraq, Miller saw buried ingredients for chemical weapons production. Well, she didn’t exactly see them. “Clad in nondescript clothes and a baseball cap,” she wrote in the Times, a former low-level Iraqi scientist known as Curveball “pointed to several spots in the sand where he said chemical precursors and other weapons material were buried.”
A few hours after that piece was published, Dick Cheney went on “Meet the Press” and quoted Miller. Others followed. Bob Simon of “60 Minutes” was quick to see through the kabuki. “You leak a story to the New York Times,” he told Franklin Foer of New York Magazine, “and the New York Times prints it, and then you go on the Sunday shows quoting the New York Times and corroborating your own information. You’ve got to hand it to them. That takes, as we say here in New York, chutzpah.”
It took two years for Miller to admit her reporting couldn’t be confirmed: “WMD—I got it totally wrong.” But it wasn’t her fault; she was deceived by her sources. Well, not even deceived. They meant well. They just got it wrong. It’s a defense we hear often. Indeed, it’s the single best argument against the passive voice: “Mistakes were made.”
Wait, did I say "hilarious"? I meant "infuriating".
"Judith Miller supports using anonymously sourced information" is about as revelatory as "water is wet".
What puzzles me is what is expected to be gained by publishing that people are removing documents so Trump cannot sign them. Surely the response from Trump would be to ensure that this doesn't happen any more? Thus the disclosure would strengthen his administration, not weaken it.
Recall that we're talking about a man with the memory and attention span of a tantruming 2-year-old. Imagine that he demands a 24-hour sentry over his desk to prevent paper-snatching. What will happen, based on behavior we've already seen?
1. He will choose from the handful of people, all family members, he feels he can trust.
2. The "chosen," unable to perform this task themselves (involving, as it does, 24/7 duty), will delegate.
3. The delegates hovering nearby will inconvenience or distract the Menace whenever he can be coaxed into attending to paperwork. Alternatively, he will send them on errands for himself, forgetting that they're there to guard his papers when he leaves.
4. Having no recall of the reasons for the delegates' presence (or having decided that, in the present moment, these reasons no longer apply), the Menace will fire the delegates.
5. Paper-snatching continues unabated.
Is it the job of a media outlet to give voice to anonymous people to spout off?
In part, yes. They use anonymous sources all the time, and those sources always have their own agendas. They also look for a wide range of op-ed contributors expressing diverse and challenging viewpoints. I don't see any reason why these can't be two great tastes that taste great together.
As such I find myself unable to rule out it being a set-up ("hah hah, look how easy it is to fool the failing NYT!").
I don't see how that's supposed to work. The Times published an op-ed from a high-ranking administration official describing insanity in the White House. What's the reveal that would show they were "fooled"? Is the Trump administration going to show they've actually been a calm, well-functioning organization all this time?
What's the reveal that would show they were "fooled"? Is the Trump administration going to show they've actually been a calm, well-functioning organization all this time?
Well, Trump is always saying how things are going "very very well", much better than in the last administration, and that he has "the best people"; and a consistent theme in the Trump presidency has been how leaking, and the propensity of "fake news media" to publish such leaks, is a greater crime than the contents of the leak, even as the leak is purported to be lies.
For him to have played the media thus ("I got Steve Bannon to write this totally fake account of White House business and I just KNEW the failing NYT would buy it Hook, Line, and Sinker") would go down nicely with his base (but as I say, this is loony conspiracy level of speculation).
But the NYT doesn't endorse op-ed pieces. The news isn't that the Trump White House is insane - that's already been widely reported - it's that a senior administration official was willing to write an op-ed saying so. That would still be true, whether they claim they were peddling a pack of lies or not.
And it posits that there's a current senior administration official willing to stand up and say "Yes, I'm a liar!", which seems unlikely. (Not willingness to lie - willingness to admit being the liar.)
I acknowledge your recognition of the looniness of the false-flag hypothesis - I suppose I'm just saying I think there are more reasons to reject it than you may have considered. (I do think you're right that Trump is extremely unlikely to have authorized anything that makes him look bad, even temporarily.)
B62:
You wrote to compare the Trump White House to "the relationship between top politicians and civil servants portrayed in Yes Prime Minister", saying "I'm a good deal less shocked by the revelation that administrators are doing their best to moderate at least some of his amoral, unprincipled and reckless behaviour." I think it's worth noting that in the US system, senior administration officials aren't civil servants who hold jobs independent of the political cycle. They're political appointees chosen by the president or his proxies, and they serve at his pleasure. The expectation that they're supposed to be working for Trump is far stronger than the expectation that Sir Humphry was supposed to be working for Jim Hackett.
I'm going to say something very childish and naive. But nobody else has said it, so here goes.
Yes, there could be and probably are a ton of motives for why someone would write and/or publish such a piece. But it seems to me the overriding reason is the one stated: to reassure frightened people that there is somebody (several somebodies) in the WH attempting to moderate Trump's dangerous behavior.
There's a lot of us who don't sleep well at night due to Trump. Is it so impossible (naive, yes, I know) that someone in the WH actually took thought for us and attempted to give us some good news?
This could still be a highly flawed individual, and it's clearly someone with whom I disagree about so-called "good results" of the presidency. And perhaps they should be doing more--if they realistically can. But I'm wondering if the claimed compassionate impulse might not be real.
I'm going to say something very childish and naive. But nobody else has said it, so here goes.
Yes, there could be and probably are a ton of motives for why someone would write and/or publish such a piece. But it seems to me the overriding reason is the one stated: to reassure frightened people that there is somebody (several somebodies) in the WH attempting to moderate Trump's dangerous behavior.
There's a lot of us who don't sleep well at night due to Trump. Is it so impossible (naive, yes, I know) that someone in the WH actually took thought for us and attempted to give us some good news?
This could still be a highly flawed individual, and it's clearly someone with whom I disagree about so-called "good results" of the presidency. And perhaps they should be doing more--if they realistically can. But I'm wondering if the claimed compassionate impulse might not be real.
It's a thing I would have done.
I have considered this but not put it into my postings. (My Bad). The reason I rejected this hypothesis is that it posits someone who would
a) be offered a post in the Trump administration (as pointed out above, this almost certainly has to be a political appointee).
b) accept such a post
c) have these ideas of 'good results' with which you and I disagree
d) not resign having seen these behaviours by Trump All of these things and
have that compassionate motivation to reassure people.
And written such a piece as this which is intrinsically self-serving.
It's not impossible, just doesn't seem to hang together, to me.
But this op-ed is not reassuring at all. It's far less reassuring to have spoken out thus than to have kept one's mouth shut. Can you imagine any sense in Bonhoeffer doing an op-ed announcing that a couple of good men in the Nazi regime were definitely keeping tabs on Hitler?
I'm going to say something very childish and naive. But nobody else has said it, so here goes.
Yes, there could be and probably are a ton of motives for why someone would write and/or publish such a piece. But it seems to me the overriding reason is the one stated: to reassure frightened people that there is somebody (several somebodies) in the WH attempting to moderate Trump's dangerous behavior.
I mentioned the possibility of reassurance a couple pages ago. I was a bit more cynical about it, though.
The second explanation is that the op-ed is intended to calm down marginal Republican voters ahead of the upcoming mid-term elections. In other words it's meant to re-assure voters who lean right (but not the true believers, who need no such re-assurances) that even though Trump is becoming noticeably less hinged all the time that "there are adults in the room" who can mitigate his worst impulses and therefore there's no need to do anything crazy like vote for a Democrat.
In other words, kind of like Kevin Bacon at the end of Animal House, reassuring people that the panicky disaster unfolding in front of them isn't cause for concern.
There's a lot of us who don't sleep well at night due to Trump. Is it so impossible (naive, yes, I know) that someone in the WH actually took thought for us and attempted to give us some good news?
It's not naïve to think that, but it is naïve not to factor in why "a senior administration official" might be so worried about American voters' peace of mind two months in advance of mid-term elections.
And we have BINGO: Nov. 6 is the reason. Now the question becomes, has the NYT been snookered into fostering a Republican hold on power in the midterms?
I'm going to say something very childish and naive. But nobody else has said it, so here goes.
Yes, there could be and probably are a ton of motives for why someone would write and/or publish such a piece. But it seems to me the overriding reason is the one stated: to reassure frightened people that there is somebody (several somebodies) in the WH attempting to moderate Trump's dangerous behavior.
There's a lot of us who don't sleep well at night due to Trump. Is it so impossible (naive, yes, I know) that someone in the WH actually took thought for us and attempted to give us some good news?
This could still be a highly flawed individual, and it's clearly someone with whom I disagree about so-called "good results" of the presidency. And perhaps they should be doing more--if they realistically can. But I'm wondering if the claimed compassionate impulse might not be real.
It's a thing I would have done.
I have considered this but not put it into my postings. (My Bad). The reason I rejected this hypothesis is that it posits someone who would
a) be offered a post in the Trump administration (as pointed out above, this almost certainly has to be a political appointee).
b) accept such a post
c) have these ideas of 'good results' with which you and I disagree
d) not resign having seen these behaviours by Trump All of these things and
have that compassionate motivation to reassure people.
And written such a piece as this which is intrinsically self-serving.
It's not impossible, just doesn't seem to hang together, to me.
AFZ
Well, he could probably justify his lack of resignation by saying "If I quit, he'll just hire some outright lunatic, who WON'T try to restrain his worst instincts. So I'm doing the public a big favour by staying where I am."
Sort of like how doctors who work in a dictator's torture chambers could rationalize it with "Okay, the torture is bad, and I don't approve of it, but if I wasn't here monitoring the health of the victims and telling the police when to stop when it goes too far, it would be a lot worse." (At least, I think that was Ben Kingsley's logic in Death And The Maiden, before he decided to join in the fun himself.)
It's not naïve to think that, but it is naïve not to factor in why "a senior administration official" might be so worried about American voters' peace of mind two months in advance of mid-term elections.
Well, there does tend to be a dovetailing between self-interest and moral calculation. If it's in the officials partisan interest to get his message out before the election, it's probably pretty easy for him to concince himself that he's doing right by the American people.
And we have BINGO: Nov. 6 is the reason. Now the question becomes, has the NYT been snookered into fostering a Republican hold on power in the midterms?
Yep. This circles back to my question: is there a constituency that this is likely to work on? I'm not convinced. Of course, it's not my opinion that matters.
And we have BINGO: Nov. 6 is the reason. Now the question becomes, has the NYT been snookered into fostering a Republican hold on power in the midterms?
Yep. This circles back to my question: is there a constituency that this is likely to work on? I'm not convinced. Of course, it's not my opinion that matters.
AFZ
I think most of the people who have stuck with Trump so far either think he's doing a fantastic job, or don't care about the quality of his work as long as he's a Republican.
And most of the people who are sticking with the Democrats think Trump is an idiot, and aren't going to be impressed to hear that people who declared loyalty to the idiot in the first place now think they're being good little boy-scouts by hiding his paperwork.
@stetson Exactly. Which is why I am not convinced of this explanation for the motivation of the OpEd author. Unless of course the author believes this...
Highly illuminating! I wondered what Judith Miller was doing working for Fox News. She doesn't seem to think much of Trump. But you have renewed my prior distrust of using anything from their website without a full test for poisonous substances! In fairness, she doesn't support publication because the info is from an anonymous source. I thought her newsworthy arguments made sense. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Yes I understand the UK/US difference. Nevertheless, I 'm sure that with all Presidents there is still significant gatekeeping, akin to that which applies the UK civil service. You'd expect it with any set of administrators and it gives them power. And in this case, as the op-ed makes clear, the motivations are the amorality and incompetence of the present incumbent, which was hardly news to anyone.
On the other major discussion point, I can't yet see how the NYT has been played to give advantage to the Trump White House. It's always a possibility that there is some black strategy in play, but on the basis of what is currently in the public domain, both the op-ed and Woodward simply add to the picture of dysfunction and sleaze which is already "out there" from multiple other sources. (Including Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury, the convictions and the confessions. )The mid terms will tell us whether the accumulated weight will produce some kind of tipping point.
I haven’t flogged through every page of the thread - for which, my apologies - but isn’t the fundamental problem with Trump one of dishonesty?
I was in the US over the summer and watched CNN’s coverage of Trump’s reactions to news about Mueller, Manafort, Cohen etc with genuine astonishment.
You can have your own views. You can’t have your own facts. When an elected, executive head of state of a powerful democracy has divorced himself from truth and reality it really is time to get rid. Ballot box, impeachment, the 25th - any would do.
My living memory goes back as far as Nixon, and my interest in US political history much further. Nothing, but nothing, comes close to the dangerous weirdness of this presidency.
And to think that when he got in I was pleased Hillary lost! Damn my naivety.
(I googled that and came up with "Before the throne of God above" - but there are plenty of options).
Hope you enjoy this website. It would have been a real labour of love to wade through not just the 40 pages of posts here on this thread but the 88 pages on the other site!
And we have BINGO: Nov. 6 is the reason. Now the question becomes, has the NYT been snookered into fostering a Republican hold on power in the midterms?
Unless the judgement is that they are going to lose the Senate as well as the House, this is a rubbish strategy. And even then, how many times in recent history has a first term President been caned at the midterms and then gone on to win a second term anyway. The legislature grinds to a halt AGAIN and the President gets to stand up and blame the other party for all the woes of the world. No. Saving the midterms isn't worth the price.
The price is to put the cherry on the top of the 'these bastards couldn't organise a chook raffle in a pub' cake.
Please note that my analysis does not take into account the Guiliani factor. I don't believe its possible to prognosticate with that kind of variable in place, but darlings I have done my best.
I haven’t flogged through every page of the thread - for which, my apologies - but isn’t the fundamental problem with Trump one of dishonesty?
I was in the US over the summer and watched CNN’s coverage of Trump’s reactions to news about Mueller, Manafort, Cohen etc with genuine astonishment.
You can have your own views. You can’t have your own facts. When an elected, executive head of state of a powerful democracy has divorced himself from truth and reality it really is time to get rid. Ballot box, impeachment, the 25th - any would do.
My living memory goes back as far as Nixon, and my interest in US political history much further. Nothing, but nothing, comes close to the dangerous weirdness of this presidency.
And to think that when he got in I was pleased Hillary lost! Damn my naivety.
Hello Hymn. Just out of curiousity, why were you happy when Hillary lost? Not that there's anything wrong with wanting her to lose, but there are numerous reasons one could thing that way.
I guess another way of asking would be: Ideally, which non-Hillary candidate would you have liked to see win?
Because I thought - and think - that Hillary represents machine politics of a particularly dislikeable sort. It’s the thing about a whole life just spent chasing and calculating for the highest political office. With a bit of added dynastic snootiness chucked in for good measure.
I suppose I prefer pols with a good and varied backstory and a convincing human reason to want to run other people’s lives.
But now I know what I know about Trump I would swap five years of him for Hillary, whatever her faults.
I gave no thought to any other candidates once Trump and Clinton were head-to-head.
Yep. This circles back to my question: is there a constituency that this is likely to work on?
Yes. Low information voters who tend to go Republican but are uncomfortable erratic viciousness. The modern conservative electoral strategy seems to revolve around shaving off just enough votes in critical constituencies to squeak through, so there don't have to be a lot of these voters, just enough in the right, carefully gerrymandered Congressional districts.
It's hard. Sometimes I forget when I'm shaking my head and laughing at the insanity that we are talking about the politics of the lynchpin country on the planet.
I gave no thought to any other candidates once Trump and Clinton were head-to-head.
Once Trump and Clinton were head-to-head, there were no other candidates. One of them was going to win, and nobody else.
Well, I asked him which candidate he would have liked to see win, so maybe he thought I was restricting the possibilities to the election itself.
Hymn:
Hope I'm not being a pain, but if you could have chosen anyone(even if they didn't stand in the real-life election or even the primaries) to become president in 2016, who would it be?
Yes, sorry, I thought you were asking about the four who stood in the general election.
V hard to answer the question, though. If I restrict myself to people who we know from holding the office itself, Obama. If it were any Rep/Dem from the primaries, Christie, probably.
I'd choose Mr Norman Gunston. As this video attests he is a very brave man who can think on his feet and handle pressure. He also knows when to take advice.
Disillusionment with establishment machine politics was a part of Trump's outsider appeal.
I had a quick look at this again and was struck, once again, by the fact that Trump got the votes he needed in the states that in the end mattered the most this time around; Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Despite losing the popular vote by a significant margin.
So Croesos' point here has some power for the midterms.
The modern conservative electoral strategy seems to revolve around shaving off just enough votes in critical constituencies to squeak through, so there don't have to be a lot of these voters, just enough in the right, carefully gerrymandered Congressional districts.
I think that's true. The message in the op-ed might be taken by those uncomfortable with Trump's erratic viciousness to mean that there are some "good guys in the back room" who can be relied on to put a brake on. Particularly if they support the policies (as the op-ed writer says he or she does). Personally I doubt whether the appeal of that targeted argument will be sufficient to outweigh the wave of disillusionment with Trump and the GOP, even in carefully targeted areas. Time will tell.
But I don't doubt the critical constituencies argument. Without effective targeting of the waverers, the Democrats could get a very big majority in the popular vote and still not win the House, or get a big enough net gain to regain control of the Senate.
Yep. This circles back to my question: is there a constituency that this is likely to work on?
Yes. Low information voters who tend to go Republican but are uncomfortable erratic viciousness. The modern conservative electoral strategy seems to revolve around shaving off just enough votes in critical constituencies to squeak through, so there don't have to be a lot of these voters, just enough in the right, carefully gerrymandered Congressional districts.
Yeah, that makes sense. This would make the author a 'conservative' in the modern, activist sense. Such a person who seems to believe in three things: 1) Tax cuts for the wealthy 2) Radical Right-Wing judges and 3) Keeping the Democrats out.
Such a person is willing to tolerate a Trump presidency to achieve those ends but knows that there are a lot of republicans nervous about Trump. Some presumably might be persuaded to come out and vote GOP in the midterms by 'knowing' there are adults in the room. Turnout is going to be important I think; the Dem's massive successes in special elections has partly been built on voter motivation.
I forget, is the writer explicit about saying that his purpose is to reassure people, or is it only implied?
The question for mine is whether trump is in on it. I know the consensus upthread is that his ego wouldn't let him do it, but I think otherwise. I think Trump is quite keen on the clever stratagem, and that he would suffer a level of indignity for the sake of the Big Reveal. As we have also noted, the op-ed is not very revealing, but big on the old BS.
On another tack, I think the WH Counsel, on his way out, is one possible author. Another thought is that silly woman who was on the Apprentice. That would be terrible. She is such a soap bubble.
[Such a person is willing to tolerate a Trump presidency to achieve those ends but knows that there are a lot of republicans nervous about Trump. Some presumably might be persuaded to come out and vote GOP in the midterms by 'knowing' there are adults in the room.
There's another group it may be aimed at, which is potential Republican party donors. AIUI Republican party donors are as a group less likely to favour protectionist policies and other stick shaking than Republican party voters are.
I think that we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the writer claims that they are not working alone but part of a small group of people. Therefore, we shouldn't think that one person alone needs to have access to all the information that has been revealed. It is for that reason that I quite like the suggestion that Jon Huntsman could be the author. He may not be "in" the White House as such but could be willing to be the "lightening conductor" so that others can remain hidden.
Whoever wrote the article must have assumed that their identity would be revealed at some point. Even if they hope to remain anonymous, it would only be prudent to anticipate that things may not go according to plan. It seems to me that if there IS a small group, then part of the planning for this article's release would be how to minimise the damage if the author's name gets out. In chess, it is sometimes necessary to sacrifice a valuable piece (even the queen) if the end result means that you gain an advantage over your opponent. In a similar way, if there is a small group, most of whom are actually working IN the White House, it would be advantageous to this group if the person most likely to be "outed" is external and so the most "convenient" to sacrifice. If it WAS revealed that Huntsman was the author, what could be done to him? Sack him as ambassador to Russia? I doubt that he would greatly grieve over that. And it would mean that the "internal" opposition pieces would still be free to do their work.
(I am not saying it IS Huntsman. Just that this would make a certain kind of sense)
As to whether this development is to be welcomed or not, whilst I can understand the arguments that a "hidden" group of self-appointed people working to subvert the president is decidedly undemocratic, the situation that the USA is in at the moment means that almost all normal rules of conduct are thrown out of the window. What is the alternative? To let Trump blunder on and possibly drag the USA and other countries into a new and terrible conflict? It seems to me that at the moment, all actions are potentially "bad" but some are worse than others.
And yes, they SHOULD let Trump blunder on until the stupid bastards come to the view that their precious agenda does not warrant the risk that he represents as President and arrange with their mates to dump him by constitutional means. Everyone always thinks that this is the most important time and that everything's critical right now. In a sense that's true, but only because the RIGHT NOW is the only time upon which we can act. The fact is that Trump was elected lawfully and is legally entitled to exercise the powers of the Presidency. The Constitution provides various means to remove him. If you don't like him and the criteria is met (which it is for impeachment) ORGANISE AND FUCKING DO IT.
The Constitution HAS NOT BEEN DEFENESTRATED. If it has been, collect up the assault rifles now, before Kavanaugh gets his arse on the Bench and can find a right to possess a dirty bomb.
Sorry if I've missed this previously, but is violence a real concern if Trump was to be lawfully removed? Would his supporters turn to violent means to express their dissatisfaction?
edit: I am not saying this is a reason NOT to do it; I'm more interested in what the outcomes could be and how they could be mitigated.
Comments
That depends on what they wish to do next, doesn't it? See James Comey's transformation into a hero of a particular type of liberal. I can see folk vying to be the next Joseph Welch
I agree with AFZ about the surprise in finding this article on the Fox News website. But it was a good surprise. There have always been a few serious journalists on Fox News, even if the majority of presenters are blatant propagandists.
Judith Miller's article is worth a read. And the following quotation seemed to me to be eminently reasonable.
I don't think the NYT needed to know the motivations of the whistleblower to decide that those two facts made for a newsworthy article.
I completely agree that the NYT motivation is both logical and moral. However why do you think that tells us more than the motivation of the author?
AFZ
I think the story was probably pre-Kelly. Reince Priebus was a pretty useless Chief of Staff and by all accounts, exercised little if any control over the flow of people and paper in and out of the Oval Office. Also by all accounts, Kelly took a much stronger grip. Any Chief of Staff worthy of the name would want to do that.
I have no doubt that Kelly does exercise some effective control over the flow now. He's the prime gatekeeper. Would Kelly have stopped that piece of paper getting close to Trump's pen? I think so. I certainly hope so.
Got you. And yep, completely agree.
This is partly why I am intrigued by the motivation of the writer as it's much less clear cut, in my view. And I strongly suspect that the writer may well be mistaken in what they perceive to be the effects... But here I am very much speculating.
AFZ
I saw some speculation that Kavanaugh has been caught making a misleading statement. Is evidence given under oath before the Senate? If so, and it was an incontrovertible whopper, he surely fails the character test for being any sort of judicial officer.
So far as credibility goes, the NYT did put their credibility on the line. Time will tell whether that was wise or not. I think they will be OK.
Is it the job of a media outlet to give voice to anonymous people to spout off? Either the person takes responsibility and signs their name, or they get a blog. The aim of the NYT may have been to damage the President, but overall I think it's done more damage to the office of the presidency. It is certainly grist to his "Deep State" argument.
(As such I find myself unable to rule out it being a set-up ("hah hah, look how easy it is to fool the failing NYT!"). The only reason I don't really entertain this is that I don't think Trump's ego could bear the prospect of orchestrating negative press about himself, even for future gains. If he was still close to Steve Bannon I would think it would be something the latter would love to pull off, though).
Another media difference between Watergate and now is that Congress was willing to have public (often televised) hearings into the matter (and other matters of executive oversight). So far what little questioning Congress has done of Trump administration officials has been done closed session.
OMG, that's hilarious!!! For those unfamiliar with her work, Judith Miller is a former New York Times reporter who published a number of (largely stenographic) stories from anonymous White House sources alleging that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Wait, did I say "hilarious"? I meant "infuriating".
"Judith Miller supports using anonymously sourced information" is about as revelatory as "water is wet".
Recall that we're talking about a man with the memory and attention span of a tantruming 2-year-old. Imagine that he demands a 24-hour sentry over his desk to prevent paper-snatching. What will happen, based on behavior we've already seen?
1. He will choose from the handful of people, all family members, he feels he can trust.
2. The "chosen," unable to perform this task themselves (involving, as it does, 24/7 duty), will delegate.
3. The delegates hovering nearby will inconvenience or distract the Menace whenever he can be coaxed into attending to paperwork. Alternatively, he will send them on errands for himself, forgetting that they're there to guard his papers when he leaves.
4. Having no recall of the reasons for the delegates' presence (or having decided that, in the present moment, these reasons no longer apply), the Menace will fire the delegates.
5. Paper-snatching continues unabated.
For him to have played the media thus ("I got Steve Bannon to write this totally fake account of White House business and I just KNEW the failing NYT would buy it Hook, Line, and Sinker") would go down nicely with his base (but as I say, this is loony conspiracy level of speculation).
And it posits that there's a current senior administration official willing to stand up and say "Yes, I'm a liar!", which seems unlikely. (Not willingness to lie - willingness to admit being the liar.)
I acknowledge your recognition of the looniness of the false-flag hypothesis - I suppose I'm just saying I think there are more reasons to reject it than you may have considered. (I do think you're right that Trump is extremely unlikely to have authorized anything that makes him look bad, even temporarily.)
B62:
You wrote to compare the Trump White House to "the relationship between top politicians and civil servants portrayed in Yes Prime Minister", saying "I'm a good deal less shocked by the revelation that administrators are doing their best to moderate at least some of his amoral, unprincipled and reckless behaviour." I think it's worth noting that in the US system, senior administration officials aren't civil servants who hold jobs independent of the political cycle. They're political appointees chosen by the president or his proxies, and they serve at his pleasure. The expectation that they're supposed to be working for Trump is far stronger than the expectation that Sir Humphry was supposed to be working for Jim Hackett.
Yes, there could be and probably are a ton of motives for why someone would write and/or publish such a piece. But it seems to me the overriding reason is the one stated: to reassure frightened people that there is somebody (several somebodies) in the WH attempting to moderate Trump's dangerous behavior.
There's a lot of us who don't sleep well at night due to Trump. Is it so impossible (naive, yes, I know) that someone in the WH actually took thought for us and attempted to give us some good news?
This could still be a highly flawed individual, and it's clearly someone with whom I disagree about so-called "good results" of the presidency. And perhaps they should be doing more--if they realistically can. But I'm wondering if the claimed compassionate impulse might not be real.
It's a thing I would have done.
I have considered this but not put it into my postings. (My Bad). The reason I rejected this hypothesis is that it posits someone who would
a) be offered a post in the Trump administration (as pointed out above, this almost certainly has to be a political appointee).
b) accept such a post
c) have these ideas of 'good results' with which you and I disagree
d) not resign having seen these behaviours by Trump
All of these things and
have that compassionate motivation to reassure people.
And written such a piece as this which is intrinsically self-serving.
It's not impossible, just doesn't seem to hang together, to me.
AFZ
I mentioned the possibility of reassurance a couple pages ago. I was a bit more cynical about it, though.
In other words, kind of like Kevin Bacon at the end of Animal House, reassuring people that the panicky disaster unfolding in front of them isn't cause for concern.
It's not naïve to think that, but it is naïve not to factor in why "a senior administration official" might be so worried about American voters' peace of mind two months in advance of mid-term elections.
Well, he could probably justify his lack of resignation by saying "If I quit, he'll just hire some outright lunatic, who WON'T try to restrain his worst instincts. So I'm doing the public a big favour by staying where I am."
Sort of like how doctors who work in a dictator's torture chambers could rationalize it with "Okay, the torture is bad, and I don't approve of it, but if I wasn't here monitoring the health of the victims and telling the police when to stop when it goes too far, it would be a lot worse." (At least, I think that was Ben Kingsley's logic in Death And The Maiden, before he decided to join in the fun himself.)
Well, there does tend to be a dovetailing between self-interest and moral calculation. If it's in the officials partisan interest to get his message out before the election, it's probably pretty easy for him to concince himself that he's doing right by the American people.
Yep. This circles back to my question: is there a constituency that this is likely to work on? I'm not convinced. Of course, it's not my opinion that matters.
AFZ
I think most of the people who have stuck with Trump so far either think he's doing a fantastic job, or don't care about the quality of his work as long as he's a Republican.
And most of the people who are sticking with the Democrats think Trump is an idiot, and aren't going to be impressed to hear that people who declared loyalty to the idiot in the first place now think they're being good little boy-scouts by hiding his paperwork.
AFZ
Croesos' post.
Highly illuminating! I wondered what Judith Miller was doing working for Fox News. She doesn't seem to think much of Trump. But you have renewed my prior distrust of using anything from their website without a full test for poisonous substances! In fairness, she doesn't support publication because the info is from an anonymous source. I thought her newsworthy arguments made sense. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Dave W's post
Yes I understand the UK/US difference. Nevertheless, I 'm sure that with all Presidents there is still significant gatekeeping, akin to that which applies the UK civil service. You'd expect it with any set of administrators and it gives them power. And in this case, as the op-ed makes clear, the motivations are the amorality and incompetence of the present incumbent, which was hardly news to anyone.
On the other major discussion point, I can't yet see how the NYT has been played to give advantage to the Trump White House. It's always a possibility that there is some black strategy in play, but on the basis of what is currently in the public domain, both the op-ed and Woodward simply add to the picture of dysfunction and sleaze which is already "out there" from multiple other sources. (Including Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury, the convictions and the confessions. )The mid terms will tell us whether the accumulated weight will produce some kind of tipping point.
I haven’t flogged through every page of the thread - for which, my apologies - but isn’t the fundamental problem with Trump one of dishonesty?
I was in the US over the summer and watched CNN’s coverage of Trump’s reactions to news about Mueller, Manafort, Cohen etc with genuine astonishment.
You can have your own views. You can’t have your own facts. When an elected, executive head of state of a powerful democracy has divorced himself from truth and reality it really is time to get rid. Ballot box, impeachment, the 25th - any would do.
My living memory goes back as far as Nixon, and my interest in US political history much further. Nothing, but nothing, comes close to the dangerous weirdness of this presidency.
And to think that when he got in I was pleased Hillary lost! Damn my naivety.
(I googled that and came up with "Before the throne of God above" - but there are plenty of options).
Hope you enjoy this website. It would have been a real labour of love to wade through not just the 40 pages of posts here on this thread but the 88 pages on the other site!
I hadn’t realised there was an entire Old Testament to this thread. I’ll go back to the old site and get up to speed!
(No intended puzzle about the hymn: on the All Saints welcome thread I volunteered that it’s Thou Whose Almighty Word.)
Unless the judgement is that they are going to lose the Senate as well as the House, this is a rubbish strategy. And even then, how many times in recent history has a first term President been caned at the midterms and then gone on to win a second term anyway. The legislature grinds to a halt AGAIN and the President gets to stand up and blame the other party for all the woes of the world. No. Saving the midterms isn't worth the price.
The price is to put the cherry on the top of the 'these bastards couldn't organise a chook raffle in a pub' cake.
Please note that my analysis does not take into account the Guiliani factor. I don't believe its possible to prognosticate with that kind of variable in place, but darlings I have done my best.
Hello Hymn. Just out of curiousity, why were you happy when Hillary lost? Not that there's anything wrong with wanting her to lose, but there are numerous reasons one could thing that way.
I guess another way of asking would be: Ideally, which non-Hillary candidate would you have liked to see win?
Because I thought - and think - that Hillary represents machine politics of a particularly dislikeable sort. It’s the thing about a whole life just spent chasing and calculating for the highest political office. With a bit of added dynastic snootiness chucked in for good measure.
I suppose I prefer pols with a good and varied backstory and a convincing human reason to want to run other people’s lives.
But now I know what I know about Trump I would swap five years of him for Hillary, whatever her faults.
I gave no thought to any other candidates once Trump and Clinton were head-to-head.
Yes. Low information voters who tend to go Republican but are uncomfortable erratic viciousness. The modern conservative electoral strategy seems to revolve around shaving off just enough votes in critical constituencies to squeak through, so there don't have to be a lot of these voters, just enough in the right, carefully gerrymandered Congressional districts.
((American Shipmates))
Well, I asked him which candidate he would have liked to see win, so maybe he thought I was restricting the possibilities to the election itself.
Hymn:
Hope I'm not being a pain, but if you could have chosen anyone(even if they didn't stand in the real-life election or even the primaries) to become president in 2016, who would it be?
V hard to answer the question, though. If I restrict myself to people who we know from holding the office itself, Obama. If it were any Rep/Dem from the primaries, Christie, probably.
In a fantasy world, John F Reagan.
I had a quick look at this again and was struck, once again, by the fact that Trump got the votes he needed in the states that in the end mattered the most this time around; Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Despite losing the popular vote by a significant margin.
So Croesos' point here has some power for the midterms.
I think that's true. The message in the op-ed might be taken by those uncomfortable with Trump's erratic viciousness to mean that there are some "good guys in the back room" who can be relied on to put a brake on. Particularly if they support the policies (as the op-ed writer says he or she does). Personally I doubt whether the appeal of that targeted argument will be sufficient to outweigh the wave of disillusionment with Trump and the GOP, even in carefully targeted areas. Time will tell.
But I don't doubt the critical constituencies argument. Without effective targeting of the waverers, the Democrats could get a very big majority in the popular vote and still not win the House, or get a big enough net gain to regain control of the Senate.
Yeah, that makes sense. This would make the author a 'conservative' in the modern, activist sense. Such a person who seems to believe in three things: 1) Tax cuts for the wealthy 2) Radical Right-Wing judges and 3) Keeping the Democrats out.
Such a person is willing to tolerate a Trump presidency to achieve those ends but knows that there are a lot of republicans nervous about Trump. Some presumably might be persuaded to come out and vote GOP in the midterms by 'knowing' there are adults in the room. Turnout is going to be important I think; the Dem's massive successes in special elections has partly been built on voter motivation.
I can see that as a credible explanation.
AFZ
The question for mine is whether trump is in on it. I know the consensus upthread is that his ego wouldn't let him do it, but I think otherwise. I think Trump is quite keen on the clever stratagem, and that he would suffer a level of indignity for the sake of the Big Reveal. As we have also noted, the op-ed is not very revealing, but big on the old BS.
On another tack, I think the WH Counsel, on his way out, is one possible author. Another thought is that silly woman who was on the Apprentice. That would be terrible. She is such a soap bubble.
Whoever wrote the article must have assumed that their identity would be revealed at some point. Even if they hope to remain anonymous, it would only be prudent to anticipate that things may not go according to plan. It seems to me that if there IS a small group, then part of the planning for this article's release would be how to minimise the damage if the author's name gets out. In chess, it is sometimes necessary to sacrifice a valuable piece (even the queen) if the end result means that you gain an advantage over your opponent. In a similar way, if there is a small group, most of whom are actually working IN the White House, it would be advantageous to this group if the person most likely to be "outed" is external and so the most "convenient" to sacrifice. If it WAS revealed that Huntsman was the author, what could be done to him? Sack him as ambassador to Russia? I doubt that he would greatly grieve over that. And it would mean that the "internal" opposition pieces would still be free to do their work.
(I am not saying it IS Huntsman. Just that this would make a certain kind of sense)
As to whether this development is to be welcomed or not, whilst I can understand the arguments that a "hidden" group of self-appointed people working to subvert the president is decidedly undemocratic, the situation that the USA is in at the moment means that almost all normal rules of conduct are thrown out of the window. What is the alternative? To let Trump blunder on and possibly drag the USA and other countries into a new and terrible conflict? It seems to me that at the moment, all actions are potentially "bad" but some are worse than others.
The Constitution HAS NOT BEEN DEFENESTRATED. If it has been, collect up the assault rifles now, before Kavanaugh gets his arse on the Bench and can find a right to possess a dirty bomb.
edit: I am not saying this is a reason NOT to do it; I'm more interested in what the outcomes could be and how they could be mitigated.