One day [Trump] picked up a red phone and said, “I would like to Start World War III, please, I don’t care with whom,” and if it had not been for me on the other line pretending to be a dial tone, who can say what would have happened. It is these little things that make all the difference between the unimaginable chaos you see and an unimaginable worse chaos.
UPDATE: The anonymous editorial is generating weird buzz around the watercooler. To wit: The NYT is trying to grab attention from WaPo's Bob Woodward, whose book documents a similar picture of the administration.
Weirder: The editorial is an inside job meant to deflect attention from the Kavanaugh hearing.
Or weirdest: Trump wrote the editorial himself to incense the base by confirming that the presidency is under the thumb of some deep state, a narrative the Trumpites have believed all along.
Just sayin'.
ALSO: Apologies for posting over Margaret's thread on the same topic. She posted hers while I.was.composing, so they crossed in the ether.
Sometimes Alexandra Petri misses the mark, but lately she has been getting better and better!
ReplyDeleteI will look up the entire article. Need a good laugh.
At some point, reality is so absurd that satire becomes extraneous. I understand that, in Woodward's book, aides are preventing the president from signing harmful executive orders by literally purloining the paperwork from his desk. Think how much more dangerous the president would be if he knew how to read and print emails. Possibly these burglar-aides are swiping the offending documents by setting a stack of folders and notebooks on top of the paperwork in question, and then sweeping up the whole pile before they leave. Or perhaps they are pointing out the window of the oval office and crying "Squirrel!" in order to get him to look away for a moment. Is this really less silly than whatever Petri wrote?
ReplyDeleteI am not a fan of Masha Gessen, the New Yorker's Russia guru. And I don't think I am a fan of the piece she has written about "Anonymous." (too much irony upon irony). But in the spirit of Jean's post, here is a link and a quote:
ReplyDelete"The way in which the news media are being corrupted—even an outlet like the Times, which continues to publish remarkable investigative work throughout this era—is one of the most insidious, pronounced, and likely long-lasting effects of the Trump Administration. The media are being corrupted every time they engage with a nonsensical, false, or hateful Trump tweet (although not engaging with these tweets is not an option). They are being corrupted every time journalists act polite while the President, his press secretary, or other Administration officials lie to them. They are being corrupted every time a Trumpian lie is referred to as a “falsehood,” a “factually incorrect statement,” or as anything other than a lie. They are being corrupted every time journalists allow the Administration to frame an issue, like when they engage in a discussion about whether the separation of children from their parents at the border is an effective deterrent against illegal immigration. They are being corrupted every time they use the phrase “illegal immigration.”
"The anonymous Op-Ed was a corrupting event not only because the Times allowed itself to become the keeper of a secret that shouldn’t be kept but also because it was a remarkable example of the Trumpian corruption of political language."
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-anonymous-new-york-times-op-ed-and-the-trumpian-corruption-of-language-and-the-media
It does not make me sleep better at night knowing that a cadre of very frightened people--too frightened to out themselves--are trying to corral a president they clearly think is incompetent.
ReplyDeleteNeither does it make me sleep better at night knowing that a cadre of unidentified individuals who were not elected are using subterfuge and deceit to try to push the country toward unstated goals rather than those of a president they think is incompetent.
Nor does it make me sleep better at night know that the NYT is giving a platform to persons unknown who want me to know that they are trying to make god-knows-what happen in lieu of the crazy stuff the president wants to do.
I can't argue with Gessen's general notion that corruption is piling up.
An unelected official thwarting the will of the president: that sounds like Sally Yates to me. She's hailed as a hero in many quarters. Is this anonymous official any different?
ReplyDeleteYes.
DeleteSally Yates did not act in secrecy. She put her name on the editorial she wrote for the NYT.
Anonymous Senior Official tells us there is a shadowy "resistance" in the White House taking it upon itself to act as the arbiter of what is or is not good or moral about Trump's policies and proposals.
S/he says, for example:
"the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic," but no specific actions or detriments are reveled.
"Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright." How, specifically, has the president assailed free minds, free markets and free people?
"Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back." How often does this occur? What are some examples of these "rants"? Of most concern, what are the "occasionally reckless decisions"?
The editorial attempts to frighten without elucidating, while Yates's editorial attempted to warn with specific examples. Read it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/opinion/sally-yates-protect-the-justice-department-from-president-trump.html
Huge difference between Sally Yates and Mike Anonymous. She told the Justice Department not to defend the unconstitutional Muslim ban in its original form. Hardly was the instruction off her desk than the federal courts started agreeing with her. She told Trump what she was doing and why, and he knew where she was when he fired her. Her role was more like Elliot Richardson's when Nixon ordered him to break a promise to Congress and fire Archibald Cox. Nixon knew where to find Richardson when he fired him and set off the firestorm that ended in San Clemente. No sneaking around, like one of Trump's fixers, for Sally and Elliot.
DeleteOkay. Fair point that Yates didn't go incognito. On the other hand, she was basically a shooting star: she streaked across the sky for a single moment and then flamed out. Her subsequent ability to influence the president and protect the country is now nil.
DeleteBtw, the federal courts ultimately have sided with the Trump Administration on that particular policy (after a couple of tweaks). So her grand gesture was essentially for naught. This shouldn't surprise anyone; the basic legality of what the president did was never in doubt, and this commentator, a former Attorney General, described Yates's behavior as "unprecedented and must go down as a serious abuse of office", and characterized her justification of her actions as "incoherent and untenable". I encourage folks who are interested to read the commentary, in light of the anonymous NY Times piece.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/former-attorney-general-trump-was-right-to-fire-sally-yates/2017/02/01/5981d890-e809-11e6-80c2-30e57e57e05d_story.html?utm_term=.62d548765cb1
I'm grateful for the men and women who are serving as a buffer and filter between the president and the rest of the world. I believe that Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein are two of those people. The rewards for their continued public service are barrages of critical and insulting tweets from the great man in the White House. Sally Yates apparently is off practicing law somewhere. I don't doubt she's tripled her salary.
I can respect someone who says, "This is too odious; I'm going to walk away from this rather than be associated with it." It's not necessary to alert the media, but fine. But I don't see her as somehow more admirable or heroic than the people who are actually serving our country in today's circumstances.
But are they serving our country. If Trump is the looney-toon they say he is, it seems to me they serve the country best not by taking matters into their own hands, but documenting incompetence and trying to go the 25th amendment.
DeleteTheir current strategy relies on their ability to maintain their subterfuges, which Anonymous has now blown by blabbing about them. S/he has also made an unstable leader even more unstable by telling him his staff has a resistance on its hands. I can't see how this info would help the president make more sane decisions. To the contrary, he will rely more and.more on his own judgment ... the very thing Anonymous and Co. are trying to prevent.
Willilam Barr has his theory of the law. Sally Yates has her theory -- which was upheld by the courts. Those were more than "tweaks" El Presidente put into his Muslim ban, although it truly was mostly eyewash for a compliant court. Basically nobody El Presidente thinks about can get into this country now.
DeleteBut leave that aside. I am astonished that a deacon would recommend that a public official, even one on her way out the door, would violate her oath to uphold the Constitution in order to comply with the sixth-grade urges of a guy who obviously does not know what he is doing.
Finally, I am old enough to remember William Barr. His distinction in his short government service is that he was one of the leaders of the "get tough on crime" crowd that filled the prisons, especially with black folk, and made it necessary to hire incompetent private-sector companies to collect tax dollars for running the prisons poorly.
I don't think the 25th amendment applies to Trump's case. Section 4, which would be the applicable section, requires that the President be "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office". The clear and obvious set of circumstances would be if the president was physically incapacitated by a stroke, severely injured in a plane crash or suffered a similarly catastrophic or impairing health event. But to the best of my knowledge, the president is able to discharge the powers and duties of his office.
DeleteBased on what we know today, it's also far from clear that he has even committed any crimes that would result in an impeachment conviction.
The best bet for ridding ourselves of this monumental error on the part of the American people is to present the American people with better alternatives in 2020. I also hold out hope that he may decide that this is all not worth the aggravation, and decide not to run for re-election. But as long as there is the threat of criminal charges being filed against him, he may conclude that the White House is the safest place for him to be, as the president is given deference by prosecutors that don't apply to run-of-the-mill Americans like us.
Invoking the 25th may be fraught in Trump's case. But I don't see why it wouldn't apply to mental/emotional incapacity. Here or on "adults post" someone cited the case of Reagan's initial signs of altzheimer's and Omarosas observation of a change in personality (not that that would stand a chance in court).
DeleteOur best bet is for the Dems to take House and Senate and put a brake on the crazy house, to avoid impeachment if possible, and hope that he resigns or doesn't run in 2020. A resignation or impeachment would leave us with Pence. It seems far-fetched to think we'd be any better off with him. Paul Ryan (speaker of the House) is next in line!
... followed, I think, by Mitch McConnell.
DeleteI could see a grand bargain to ease Trump out of office, the basic outline of which would be, "I'll resign if you pardon me." President Pence would have to know that would put an endpoint on his own political career, so it might be viewed as a patriotic act.
Re: Pence: I understand that enthusiasm for him around here would be pretty minimal. But he would, in fact, be a marked improvement over Trump. Based on what we know, he's not erratic, amoral or dysfunctionally egotistical, and doesn't spend the prime work hours of the day watching Fox News. He'd be an actual president. Granted, he would be a Republican president, which I know wouldn't be popular at NewGathering. But at least he'd meet what most of us consider the minimal qualifications for office in terms of ability, experience and temperament. He's presidential timber. And Democrats could take their best shot at him during the next election cycle.
DeleteI have no problem with a Republican president such as Lindsey Graham, Suzanne Collins, Lisa Murkowski, or Chuck Grassley. I have a problem with a president who believes that our foreign and ecological policies should be guided by wingding notions about Israel and the End Times. Pence seems to be one of those wingdings.
DeleteAbout the idea that Trump wrote the editorial himself, I don't think he has the language and writing skills to do so, unless he employed a ghost writer.
ReplyDelete"Anonymous" has been thoroughly dumped on. But for what? For not putting a name on his/her/theirs NYTimes piece.
ReplyDeleteMore than confirming what has been evident about Trump's decision-making processes and erratic behavior and inattention, the op-ed makes clear that there are people inside the administration paying attention to the chaos and disorder and doing things to limit it. We don't know whether or not they are being successful. But they are doing something. They are telling the rest of us that something is critically wrong with this administration.
Rather than seeing "Anonymouse" as cowardly or evasive, I have thought of German's who said and did things during Hitler's regime. (A memoir by Joachim Fest writes of his father's quiet resistance to the Nazi's). Will we be asked when Trump is gone, what did you do, say, or write to oppose him?
Alexandra Petri and Masha Gessen may be on top of the satiric and irony bandwagons about why this was either silly or counter-productive, but so what? Someone has to do it! Including each of us. This isn't just a "crazy house" in John Kelly's words, it is a crazed nation.
David Ignatius makes the point:
Delete"How can the United States deal with this toxic presidency wisely, in a way that avoids making the country as damaged and dysfunctional as the man in the Oval Office? The answer is that it’s on us, and I don’t mean journalists. Accountability begins with voters; from them, it passes to elected officials and judges who oversee the executive branch; and to executive officials themselves who swear oaths to the Constitution, not the president.
Trump called the leaker “gutless,” and sometimes leakers are. But the charge really applies to members of Congress, administration officials and, yes, even voters who see that something is disastrously wrong and do nothing to stop it — protecting party or personal interests rather than the nation."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-to-stay-sane-in-crazytown/2018/09/06/f908085e-b200-11e8-9a6a-565d92a3585d_story.html?utm_term=.2f294be409e2
Good point from Ignatius.
DeleteIt isn't the anonymity that bothers me as much as the fact that I think the editorial will put a lot of staffers under extra scrutiny and make it harder for the "resistance" to do its secret work, assuming it's really all as heroic as it is made out to be.
I do think the onus is on the GOP to persuade Trump to give up re-election plans and to find a decent alternative candidate.
Dems also need to find a good candidate.
It is 12;43 p.m. on Friday, and I just checked. The White House has five "suspects," but the author has not yet been identified.
DeleteMiramur!
Half of the people in the White House have to know who it is. Maybe these coup plotters are really good, although I have yet to see much evidence.
Meanwhile, I will stick to my first question: Cui bono?
Cui bono? Mike Pence, who as an elected official can't be fired by Trump, if Pence proved to be the letter writer...okay far-fetched. Mrs. Trump? Mrs. Pence?
DeleteI love Pence as chief suspect. My own thought is that the Democrats benefit, so it would be someone most likely to be a Democrat. I've landed on Melania or Ivanka.
DeleteJim, LOL! Melania, now there's a thought. She didn't want to be in the White House fishbowl in the first place. 25th amendment is one way to get out. Seriously, I think it's more likely to be Pence. Another possibility is Mike Pompeo.
DeleteJim, You have my wife on your side. My problem with the theory is the Ds were already benefiting from Woodward's Crazytown book. Nothing new has dribbled out from that book while we debate whether Mike Anonymous is a cabal of Latin American colonels or the second coming of Sir Thomas More. (My guess leans to the former.)
DeleteRather than focusing on who, I'm looking at what. As in what's the real message here?
ReplyDeleteIf 60 percent of the voters know Trump is a poor leader, and even those of us who live in soybean fields could predict the way the editorial might actually make resistance harder, then what's the value of the editorial?
So is there some telegraphing going on here? Are staffers letting conservatives like Flake, Corker, or Kucinich know that staff have dope against Trump that would help mount a GOP opposition campaign in 2020?
Jean, it's an interesting idea. I think you could add Sasse and Cruz to that list, probably a lot of others.
DeleteThe fundamental problem is that no GOP candidate can win the presidency without Trump's voters. So somehow they have to figure out how to make Trump go away without alienating his core. I guess the straightforward answer is, "Just avoid that problem by voting for the Democrat". For whatever reason, Hillary wasn't a candidate who could induce conservatives to cross over.
Yeah, maybe he would be a third party spoiler if the party snubbed him. By the same token, if the GOP ran someone like Kucinich or Sasse, I might cross over. Flake or Corker would be harder sells for me. Cruz, not a chance in hell.
DeleteJean, I have a real soft spot for Chattanooga, of which Corker was once mayor. So I have a real soft spot for him.
DeleteTwo other things are also interesting about this point. One is that the only Rs who have seriously challenged El Presidente have done it and bailed out with what little honor they can keep. People who go all the way to the end with Trump end up in prison or besmirched.
The second thing is there is no party if its members are controlled by, and can't control, its leader. There is just a huge ego trip with strong sanctions against the kid hollering that the emperor is naked. This second factor was always going to be the inevitable result of taking the pros out of the nominating system and turning it over to an in-again, out-again bunch of people turning their attention to politics, briefly, from the Kansas City Chiefs and Let's Make a Deal. Binding primaries in every state turned the focus from winning elections to the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat -- show biz, in short. Before Jim does, let me note that this was a "reform" originated by the Ds just before their brains totally flatlined.
"... there is no party if its members are controlled by, and can't control, its leader."
DeleteThat's well worth thinking about. The clear purpose of the editorial is to reassure Republicans that resistance elements in the party are working to control it's leader.
If I were a Republican, which I am about 20 percent of the time, I would not be reassured. The tactics being used by the resistance sound like those you would use with a serial killer holding you hostage--flattery, deceit, and subterfuge.
There was a hostile takeover of the Republican party. I blame the way we do primaries for that. It played out like corporate raiders taking over a corporation. There were 16 or 17 Republican candidates. The corporate raider didn't have to get a majority. All he had to do was outlast the other 16. I would favor clustering the primaries much closer together. The ones toward the end are basically meaningless now.
DeleteHaha. I'd say I'm a Democrat 20% of the time and a democratic socialist the rest of the time.
DeleteAn Anonymous defender: former ethics czar in Obama Admin.(he is also flogging his new book [skip that part]).
ReplyDelete"We should view the actions of Anonymous through the lens of civil disobedience. At some point, each of us must answer to our conscience. History is kind to those who did so around the world in the last century, including in the United States, such as those who broke the law to fight for civil rights. So, too, it will be to Anonymous.
"Yes, on the classical theory of civil disobedience, you are supposed to act openly and take your punishment. But as a hero of the field, Daniel Ellsberg, has argued in a different context, that paradigm must be adapted in this day and age because the draconian risk to the disobedient has grown too large. As an ethicist, I think Anonymous' judgment to conceal his or her identity was the right one under these circumstances, including because it allows him or her to continue to function as a safety net in government."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/07/opinions/anonymous-is-an-american-hero-eisen/index.html
Eisen hasn't convinced me. "(T)he draconian risk to the disobedient has grown," in this case, to a tour of the talk shows, a book contract and probably a fellowship at a think tank. Ellsberg, whom Eisen cites, was dealing with classified documents (and, in passing, provided the best proof ever that too damn much stuff gets classified). The result for him could have been draconian.
DeleteAdditionally, we don't really know exactly what principle the cabal stands for. Are they perhaps encouraging El Presidente to sign off on huge budget deficits but discouraging his contacts with Vladimir Putin?
Or vice versa? No deficits, but love the Vlad?
Considering who put them where they are, do we really want to be run by decisions of people who got their job by satisfying the qualifications also met by Gen. Flynn, George Papodopulous, Omarosa Manigault, Paul Manafort and Kris Kobach? Are those the kind of people you would trust to overrule a president, who at least tweets his idiocies and ignorance and does not hide them behind the veil of anonymity?
I'd just as soon stick with the devil I know. I once knew a cynical reporter who broke into hysterical laughter every time anyone mentioned the ethics of journalism. I have the same reaction to mention of the ethics of a Trump hire.
I am still reading too many espionage, Cold War, MI567, etc., so my counter-espionage antenna are twirling:
ReplyDeleteSomewhere among the "devils" you don't know, Tom, I suspect there is a devil we could argue was doing the best she/he/they could do under the circumstances. Was a leftover from GWBush, kept by Obama and is defending the Constitution order.
That is, "the Constitutional order."
DeleteYeah, maybe. But he says he has co-conspirators. No one person can be there every time the subject picks up his phone. Well, one maybe. Does Pence ever leave his position two steps behind and a little to the left or right?
Delete