The first thing to say about that anonymous New York Times op-ed is that its impact was always going to harm the cause the “senior official in the Trump administration” claims to be working for — namely, to rein in what the author sees as President Trump’s worst instincts.
“Anonymous” — let’s just assume it’s a guy and call him A — says he and other high officials want to “frustrate parts of [Trump’s] agenda and his worst inclinations” while supporting the “good” Trump whose “policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.”
Huh? This is basically what all executive branch staff are supposed to do: Counsel the president. The job is more challenging under Trump than other chief executives? Tough.
A doesn’t even point to an actual crisis averted by Trump’s minions. The closest he comes is recounting how the president had to be persuaded to impose new sanctions on Russia and dared to gripe about it afterward. Big deal: He made the right call and kept the staffers who’d moved him to do it. President Bill Clinton regularly raged at his minions, too.
Good ol’ A boasts of the administration’s achievements: “effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more” — but complains they came despite “the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.”
OK: Trump drives us crazy sometimes, too. But a President Hillary Clinton would’ve delivered none of that — and it’s hard to see how any other Republican nominee would’ve carried Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin and so won the White House.
If Trump has “little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people,” he does have an affinity for voters whose concerns run beyond all that movement-conservative jargon.
Speculation is rife over A’s motives: Burnishing his own reputation when he someday owns up to the Times piece? Trying to undermine the crowd of staffers he claims to be a part of?
The one thing that’s certain is that those motives were purely selfish — because an official out to support the “best” of any president’s agenda wouldn’t be slamming the boss in the pages of the Times, and thereby giving comfort to the opposition.
If A were what he claims to be, he’d simply soldier on quietly. But he’s not: He’s just a self-important worm.
