So, like, there’s absolutely no chance whatsoever that Trump changes any of his behavior in any fashion for any purpose based on what he now knows from the op ed, right?
Given Woodward’s book there are plenty of Administration people willing to say nasty things about Trump. Maybe this is someone who didn’t talk to Woodward and now wants to get on the bandwagon.
I suspect a lot of these people know that when history is written Trump is going to go down as the worst president ever, and they don’t want to be remembered like John Mitchell and the other Watergate filth - so they are spinning things that they are protecting the country from Trump.
In any case since Trump is now telling Sessions he should be obstructing justice - on the record - why should the Times have to take the risk of making things up?
Lots of folks on Reddit think Pence is the author, because “lodestar” is apparently a word he’s used before. Also, Pence is the one “senior official” who cannot be fired by Trump. And of course, if Trump is impeached, Pence becomes prez. He gets to pat himself on the back for being the adult in the room, but for us to buy that we’d have to forget all the shucking and jiving he’s done on Trump’s behalf.
As much as a hate Trump and as much as I find all of this intriguing, I really don’t like any of this. Because it means we really do have a puppet for a president and a shadow government pulling the strings. And though this “rebel” assures us these string-pullers all on the up-and-up, there’s no way we can know this. If you have the balls to snatch papers off the president’s desk, then you have the balls to do a whole lot of other stuff the president and no one else knows about. So we are in some serious shit.
Trump is free to sue them for libel if he thinks it’s BS.
I doubt that he will.
I guess we’ve been assuming up to now that the president would be smart enough, interested enough, and on the ball enough to figure out if this was happening to him?
And also that he and his staff would be constructively working together as a team sufficiently well to ensure that this wouldn’t be happening to him.
As I’ve said before, the post-Trump landscape of legislative restrictions on the actions of the Chief Executive is likely to look very different from the pre-Trump one. Congress and the judiciary are now realizing that a lot of the unsupervised autonomy that the office of the President enjoys was based on the assumption that the President would be a reasonably well-informed and responsible adult, and that this assumption can no longer be taken for granted.
Hear him!
I understand the 25th amendment was raised in the NYT op-ed. How long does Trump have to be in office for Pence to get two additional full terms.
A big Democratic win could be the best thing for the GOP - let the Dems get rid of Trump and have Pence for ten years.
Whu?
I hope, when the White House starts digging in to find the traitor, that EVERYONE confesses. I’m picturing a movie moment, with the staff in large meeting room, when someone raises their hand and says “ I wrote the Times Op Ed”. Then someone else raises their hand and says “I wrote the Times Op Ed”. Then hands go up throughout the room, one at a time, as the entire senior staff joins together in a majestic and heartwarming show of solidarity. And then their testicles grow back. Even Sarah’s.
There’s no way that the author of the anonymous op-ed is anyone worth a shit, and that’s one reason - among several - I have problems with it. The New York Times editorial board just fucked itself, and it also might have fucked the WaPo and other credible or established major metro news gathering outlets. I confess I’ve never been a practicing journalist, aside from 2 freelance articles in my undergrad days, but I worked in PR and know the field. This is just a massive fucking decline in journalistic standards and editorial laziness on the part of the Times. On 95% of the papers out there it wouldn’t mean shit, but this is the freaking Times.
But that’s just it: what if he doesn’t think it’s BS?
I take it you’ll grant, for the sake of argument, that Trump can get stuff wrong. In which case — what? If it’s BS, but Trump figures it isn’t, then he rants about how cowardly the leaker is, and bellows about trying to find out who it is, and fires off angry tweets about an anonymous traitor, or whatever; but he presumably doesn’t sue for libel, because so long as he figures it’s not BS he’d figure he’s in for a public declaration by the court that, officially, “uh, no, that’s not in fact libel.”
Actually, he apparently is demanding that the NYT hand over to the government the name of the source, on national security grounds. I’m under the impression that there is precedent for the Times tell him to go pound sand. What I think we can all agree on is that there likely to be some sort of court proceeding on this issue in the very near future.
And yeah, I’m rather suspicious that this could be some sort of sting operation as well.
[QUOTE=monstro;21189672…If you have the balls to snatch papers off the president’s desk, then you have the balls to do a whole lot of other stuff the president and no one else knows about. So we are in some serious shit.[/QUOTE]
He is playing golf in Ireland. It is easy to remove papers from his desk.
Yes, it is either Pence or somebody framing Pence. Pence uses the uncommon “lodestar” in lots of speeches: One Word Has People Convinced Mike Pence Wrote Anonymous New York Times Op-Ed | HuffPost Latest News
BTW, I love the Twitter hashtag #VeepThroat.
The author may see himself as some sort of, uh, hero, I suppose. But in reality he’s just a rat on the ship that has spotted the iceberg and is trying to secure a seat on the lifeboat.
Any time between now and Jan. 19, 2019. The 22nd Amendment states: Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
Here’s a link to the actual editorial
It does sound sort of Pence-ish to me. But this is what bugs me about it — if it was Pence then he’s not really trying too hard to stay anonymous, and if it wasn’t then it’s someone trying to get Pence in trouble — either way it’s just more of the same stupid backstabbing bullshit that this administration encourages.
But the Op Ed rubbed me the wrong way and I really want to punch the author in the nuts. Because he thinks he and his other “resisters” are unsung heroes ( his words!) because they hide things and trick Trump when he tries to do anything really really super stupid , as opposed to the everyday run of the mill stupid stuff they let him get away with.
All because they are trying to protect themselves and their fellow Republicans from the consequences of their craven acquiescence. I almost felt like the author was trying to temper the effects of the upcoming Woodward book by trying to reassure America that Trump isn’t going to get to play with his nuclear football no matter how crazy he gets. Whoever wrote this is a feckless enabler and he should go fuck himself.
And if it WAS Pence, I bet his Mommy put him up to it,
…and Irving.
Trump, by all accounts, thrives on and deliberately cultivates chaos. He wants his various aides and minions competing against each other. He wants people to not know where they stand with him. He wants to play all sides against each other, and when no one is looking he slips the family silver into his pocket.
If Trump had an inspectors report saying one of his buildings wasn’t up to code, does anyone think he’d show it to a prospective buyer? I shed no tears for Trump getting a dose of his own medicine.
I can’t imagine that the NYT would print anything written by Pence.