Over the weekend, among the incessant yelling of racism, speculation of who is the mysterious "Q"etc. the question still burned as of who wrote the scathing Op-ed in the NYT last week. I've believed all along it was just a in-house NYT hit piece. Until they prove it's not, I will not believe otherwise. Some others much smarter than I believe it is a genuine piece from inside the administration, but with a bit of media misdirection attached......
"The most surprising aspect of the furor surrounding the infamous unsigned New York Times Op-Ed, ostensibly written by a member of the Trump administration, is that anyone believes its author is a senior official. Assuming this person isn’t an employee of the Times, and it is by no means unknown for the Gray Lady’s journalists to fabricate quotes and attribute them to anonymous “officials,” the author of this hit piece is at most a mid-level staffer. Indeed, if this character is actually employed in the Trump administration, it is almost certainly at a level of insignificance verging on invisibility.
First, the editors of the Times are virulently anti-Trump. Their assurances about the prominence of this furtive functionary simply can’t be trusted. Moreover, as Phelim McAleer at Townhall points out, the nation’s “newspaper of record” has a long history of exaggerating the seniority of officials it quotes anonymously.
Not coincidentally, the solipsistic voice and callow perspective that “Anonymous” brings to the Op-Ed tends to undermine the claim that it was written by a high-ranking official in any administration. Most senior members of the Trump administration are over 50 years old and many are well beyond 60. Yet, throughout the entire essay, there is an unmistakable thread of historical illiteracy and presentism that one would normally associate with a Millennial.
The piece consists primarily of shopworn clichés that can be heard in any bar in any college town in America (or on CNN if you’re stuck in an airport). This self-styled “defender of our democratic institutions” solemnly states that “President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic,” that he “shows a preference for autocrats and dictators,” that “the country is bitterly divided,” and that the “root of the problem is the president’s amorality.”
None of this is original. Nor is it accurate. But it does contain a revealing cliché that serves as an indicator of the author’s lack of seniority — the tired trope concerning how Trump has bitterly divided the country. It’s only possible to believe this nonsense if you are too young to remember the deep divisions in public opinion over Vietnam, the Nuclear Freeze movement, the Clinton impeachment, and Iraq. It is not merely inaccurate to blame Trump for today’s political divisions. The youthful hubris of our anonymous genius is such that it obscures the reality that Trump’s successes were actually accomplished by the President and his loyal aides: “There are bright spots.… But these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style.” In other words, “Anonymous” has saved the nation from Trump’s “misguided impulses.”
So, what do we know about the unnamed author of the New York Times hit piece? If this person is a member of the Trump administration, the taxpayers are footing the bill for the deliberate obstruction of their will as expressed in the 2016 presidential election. The good news is that the sophomoric opinions expressed in the anonymous Times Op-Ed are probably nothing more the impotent puling of a powerless cubicle critter."* Excerpts from David Catron @The American Spectator
Thank You Whatfinger News for the Linkage!
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