Cyclop's quick guess on who wrote the NY Times Op Ed has elicited record responses
Some of Cyclops non US readers have asked "what Op Ed ?"
As a service to them the URLs below contain a transcript and a reading on CNN
The medya is of course in frenzy.
No pundit has agreed with Cyclops guess of Mad Dog Mattis
The consensus of Cyclops blog readers seems to be that "It's the Butler what did it"
We will know soon enough.
In the meantime the WH Straight Jacket has been sent to the dry cleaners.
In response to one of Cyclops passionate readers the king understands that Congress has instigated a search for the lost Cojones of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell-----nothing found as yet
I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration
The Times today is
taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at
the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose
identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We
believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an
important perspective to our readers. We invite you to submit a question about
the essay or our vetting process here.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/09/05/new-york-times-op-ed-full-bolduan-erin-vpx.cnn
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/09/05/new-york-times-op-ed-full-bolduan-erin-vpx.cnn
President Trump is facing a test to his
presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.
It’s not just that the special counsel looms
large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or
even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his
downfall.
The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of
the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from
within to frustrate parts of his
agenda and
his worst inclinations. I would know. I am one of them.
To be clear, ours is not the popular
“resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that
many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.
But we believe our first duty is to this
country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to
the health of our republic.
That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what
we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting
Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.
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.
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.
In
addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the “enemy of
the people,” President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and
anti-democratic.
Don’t
get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage
of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax
reform, a more robust military and more.
But
these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership
style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.
From
the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials
will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments
and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.
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.
“There is literally no telling
whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,” a top official
complained to me recently, exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the
president flip-flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week
earlier.
The
erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes in
and around the White House. Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the
media. But in private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions
contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always successful.
It may
be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are
adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to
do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.
The
result is a two-track presidency.
Take
foreign policy: In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference
for autocrats and dictators, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little genuine appreciation for
the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations.
Astute
observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is operating
on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling
and punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as
peers rather than ridiculed as rivals.
On
Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr.
Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in
Britain. He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get
boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that
the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign
behavior. But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be
taken, to hold Moscow accountable.
This
isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.
Given
the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of
invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing
the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we
will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until —
one way or another — it’s over.
The bigger concern is not what Mr.
Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed
him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be
stripped of civility.
Senator
John McCain put it best in his farewell letter. All Americans
should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim
of uniting through our shared values and love of this great nation.
We may
no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his example — a lodestar
for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue. Mr. Trump may
fear such honorable men, but we should revere them.
There
is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put
country first. But the real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising
above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in
favor of a single one: Americans.
The writer is a senior official in the Trump administration.
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