“Anonymous”
Is No “Deep Throat”
In the past week of this article’s posting, President Donald Trump has no
doubt been feeling a little threatened.
Normally his enemies are the media, liberals, reason, reality, the truth,
and anyone with a functioning brain that is not kissing his ass and applauding
like some toy circus animal. And, yes,
you can count me in as one of those with a functioning brain.
But now he has a new enemy, one that he probably never suspected, and one
that is probably the most dangerous for him... and to our country.
His newest and greatest enemy is his own people in the White House.
First there is Bob Woodward’s upcoming
book “Fear”, set
to release on 9/11, which claims that White House staff
consider the President of the United States as “unhinged”, “an idiot”, and they
actually remove papers from his desk before he can sign them.
Then there is “Anonymous”; a supposed “Senior White House Official” who
penned an opinion article in the New York Times confirming
that he (or she) is part of a quiet “resistance”
movement in the White House to “contain” Trump’s unstable antics and reassure the
world that what Trump says and does is the opposite of what is really going on
in the White House.
Now Woodward’s look at the White House is really nothing different from
what he’s been doing in the years after he first got fame exposing the antics
of the White House under President Richard Nixon. Woodward has gotten plenty of dirt about what
really goes on in the White House that every president before Trump have not
been comfortable with. Woodward talks
with the people that work there, not just relying on what the President or his
handlers have to say.
And, yes, there are a lot of comparisons between Nixon and Trump that
Woodward is quick to point out. The
paranoia. The insanity. The back-talking. Woodward himself says that the White House
today is a lot like when it was just before Nixon resigned.
I was only a child when the Watergate scandal broke and when Nixon
resigned from office. I didn’t know why
he was resigning but I remember my parents took the news seriously. Years later, I had to learn what really
happened and how a botched break-in would bring down a sitting president. I learned the role that Woodward and his
partner Carl Bernstein played in exposing the truth, and the role of their
source... a shadowy figure known only as “Deep Throat”.
It would be forty years before the identity of “Deep Throat” could be
revealed. It ended up being W. Mark Felt,
former Associate Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Someone who kept quiet about what he did, and
even openly denied his involvement until it was clear that anyone that could
get revenge on him were long since dead.
Those who would demand the Times give up the identity of “Anonymous”
would do well to keep that in mind. If
Felt didn’t openly admit to being “Deep Throat”, it would have remained one of
the great mysteries of the Watergate scandal.
And, again, prior to the great reveal, Felt openly denied being the
source.
But “Anonymous” is a different character than Felt’s “Deep Throat”.
Let’s get brutally honest here... “Anonymous” is not like “Deep Throat”. He (or she) isn’t
even close to what Felt did.
“Deep Throat” didn’t work to quietly sabotage the Nixon White House. He didn’t steal documents from the
President’s desk or quietly reassure the world that there was a “private coup”
going on that would neuter the President’s intentions and actions. All “Deep Throat” did was point Woodward and
Bernstein to where they should look and who to ask questions. He was an informant, not a saboteur.
“Anonymous” and his (or her)
cohorts are saboteurs who are undermining their boss to advance their own
agenda. That’s not being a hero. That falls under acts of insurrection even
worse than what the GOP was doing to Trump’s predecessor for the prior two
terms.
There are two trains of thought as to who “Anonymous” is and what their
motivations would be.
The first is a radical idea: that “Anonymous” is really Trump.
It’s not the first time that Trump has played a con on the media. He’s created fake identities before to
advance his agenda. And to come up with
the idea that there is a “shadow coup” going on in the White House plays right into
Trump’s continual claim of a “Deep State” that he’s supposedly trying to
eliminate. “Anonymous” would be the
confirmation of everything he’s been telling his cult followers is going on. It would send his base into a frothy rage and
support him doing everything he can to shut it down.
The other thought would be “Anonymous” really is someone in the White
House... and, given
the use of the rare word “lodestar” in their article, it
suggests that it is either Vice President Mike Pence or at least someone
familiar with his speeches. If that is
the case, then the motive would be to set the stage for removing Trump from
office through
the 25th Amendment.
Invoking the 25th Amendment doesn’t require any kind of
validation or certification. There is no
test. No hearings. No doctors are needed. There is simply a letter signed by the Vice
President and a majority of the cabinet members that declares the President to
be unable to fulfill the duties of the position, and that the Vice President
would assume those responsibilities as Acting President. Pence could file that letter today if he
could convince that majority to go along with him.
But, if Pence did that today, then he’d have to deal with Trump’s cult
followers. A horde of self-righteous
myrmidons that live in a state of perpetual delusion, firmly believing that
Trump is some God-appointed savior freeing the world from a corrupt cabal of
pedophiles (no,
I am not making that up) that have been
keeping them in poverty and misery.
Pence may have the religious extremists on his side, but that still
wouldn’t protect him from the wrath of the Trumpets if he's seen as overthrowing
their savior.
Pence would need a reason to act.
He’d need a preamble that he could sell to the Trumpets. “Anonymous” and Woodward’s book does that
nicely. Trump is “unstable”, an “idiot”,
“not well”, and he needs to be handled to keep his “worst impulses” from
ruining the nation. It gives Pence the justification
that wouldn’t even have to come from him.
I know Pence has
firmly denied being “Anonymous” or considering invoking
the 25th Amendment, but keep in mind that Felt spent forty years
firmly and publicly denying that he was “Deep Throat”. So whomever “Anonymous” is, they’re not going
to openly admit it anytime soon if it leads to retribution. They’ll lie and deny and offer up every kind
of test to supposedly prove their denials. Kind of like what Pence is doing now. Hmm...
But even that does not warrant what “Anonymous” and the rest of the
so-called “steady state” are doing there.
It doesn’t matter who is in the White House; they are entitled to a
staff that will carry out what that President asks. It doesn’t matter if it is a good and competent
administrator, or an incompetent and narcissistic buffoon who behaves more like
a child than his own children. Short of
something extreme, i.e. starting an all-out unprovoked nuclear war, that
President needs to stand out or fall on their own. If the president is inept and incompetent, mentally
unstable, prone to dangerous or embarrassing antics, then there is a remedy for
that. It’s called the 25th Amendment. That’s why it is there.
If you feel that your “job” is to protect the White House from the
President, then, simply put, you need to find another job. That one is not yours to presume.
No comments:
Post a Comment