POLL: Who is the NYT Op-Ed writer?

[scheming daemons]

Keep in mind... it is someone who has been in the administration from the start, based on the section where they talk about the 25th amendment early on.

53 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Nikki Haley
	5 (9%)
	Mike Pompeo
	2 (4%)
	Steve Mnuchin
	0 (0%)
	Jeff Sessions
	3 (6%)
	James Mattis
	9 (17%)
	KellyAnne Conway
	0 (0%)
	Sarah Huckabee Sanders
	1 (2%)
	John Kelly
	0 (0%)
	Other (please specify)
	18 (34%)
	Mike Pence
	15 (28%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[kozar]

1. Mattis OR Kelly,

given revelations of taking Syria military responses from Trumps desk,,

Koz

[fallout87]

46. Whoever it is

they are not a household name. It's not Mattis, Jared, Kelly, or anyone well known.

That's my inclination.

[sarah FAILIN]

2. Steven Miller

He likes to hear himself talk.

[HopeAgain]

35. No way Trump is not crazy enough for Miller

Miller is the one pushing Trump to want to do crazy things. This is someone with some governmental experience, so that would rule him out.

[liberalhistorian]

71. I agree. Miller is a xenophobic

hate-filled brown shirt. Given his family background that shocks and disgusts me, as I'm sure it does his family as well.

[hellacia]

3. I voted other

It's Mike Pence. He's making his move. He'll back up cabinet members if they can agree to 25th amendment Trump. He'll do it with great sadness but for the good of the country.

[exboyfil]

9. That is my guess

He is the one guy that Trump can't fire (at least not until Jan, 2021 or he releases sufficient dirt to force a resignation or impeachment).

[mikeysnot]

18. I think he was set up with the dense pick

because republican establishment knew how corrupt idiot is that dense will be in place to fill out the agenda of the oligarchs.

And turn this nation in to an autocratic/theocratic dictatorship.

[EffieBlack]

47. I don't think the Times would have run it if it had been him

[hellacia]

61. Pence wouldn't have presented it to the Times

But one of his lackeys would, and that lackey would be considered high up in the administration.

With these crooks, my first thought always goes to "who benefits? who gets richer? who gets more power?". In this case the arrow points towards Pence

[thucythucy]

59. Wasn't it Manafort who picked Pence

as VP?

Just sayin'.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

81. No way. He is a lump. Lumps don't do something like the OpEd. Unless..

he's impatient and thinking - hell, I gotta get rid of this nut - because I can't win in 2020

[VMA131Marine]

4. Javanka!

[jberryhill]

5. Pence uses "lodestar"

https://www.vsotd.com/featured-speech/vigilance-and-resolve-will-be-our-lodestar

Vigilance and Resolve Will Be Our Lodestar

Address by Mike Pence, Vice President, United States of America
Delivered at the Kantei, Tokyo on February 7, 2018

[scheming daemons]

8. Good sleuthing! That's not a common word to use....

...do we have any instances of other cabinet members using that word?

[jberryhill]

12. Henry Kissinger used it to refer to McCain's honor at the funeral

"Honor was John’s lodestar." - was the line delivered by Kissinger.

(I have looked for others who have used the word or are likely to, and have none so far)

[joshcryer]

10. Oh boy.

[yardwork]

16. It's possible that others have picked up use of the word.

That said, this sounds like Pence. Sniveling, groveling, backstabbing, self-justifying weasel prepared to take over the minute Trump goes down.

I agree. It's Pence.

[bettyellen]

29. Love your description of Pence!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

82. wow - good catch JB !!

[Sanity Claws]

6. I doubt Mattis or Kelly

I think Mattis and Kelly are exerting control over Trump because they consider him dangerous. However, I just don't see them writing this kind of editorial and jeopardize their position of carrying on. I think it is someone who really has less to loss in terms of controlling Trump if he/she gets fired. For that reason, I think it could be Halley or Pompeo. Halley is self-righteous enough to write something like that and make sure people understand that she is not part of the left. Pompeo is a self-serving tea partier who would write something like this so he could have things both ways.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

86. If you read Omarosa's book and there's any truth to it - John Kelly is a super asshole. nt

[Laura PourMeADrink]

88. Good points. You may be right on Mattis or Kelly. Isn't the "don't buck

your superior" embedded to the core for military men?

[grantcart]

7. Keith Kellogg National Security Adviser for Mike Pence

Guessing it is a Pence guy, Security guy, Military guy

[Laura PourMeADrink]

91. Kellogg...

The source said Kellogg was often the only person in NSC meetings who would bring up Trump’s campaign promises and remind people of naked politics. This was sometimes uncomfortable in a room of people who largely liked to stay above politics, but it was an important role, the source said.

https://www.axios.com/backstory-pence-decision-keith-kellogg-john-bolton-0e38db3f-8cfe-4eed-84df-5a3afd058b50.html

[Gothmog]

11. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has a poll for you to vote on

Link to tweet

[nolabear]

19. Ouch! Three family and one outside parasite.

[Drunken Irishman]

97. That's no way to refer to Melania.

[marylandblue]

13. Has to be a cabinet official, because it reference the cabinet

talking about the 25th amendment. But not Mattis because he would have emphasized military more and deregulation not at all. Talks a lot about foreign policy. So I say Nikki Haley. Also she has shown more open defiance than any other official and got away with it.

[jberryhill]

14. Cabinet or VP

25th requires the VP

[marylandblue]

23. Could be VP, but he would mentioned family values, the court

or some other social conservative code words, not economic conservatism.

[DeminPennswoods]

37. "Lodestar"

On another thread there's a link to a tweet citing Pence's frequent use of the word "lodestar".

[marylandblue]

39. Yes, but that's not.enough for me

Sit in enough meetings with someone long enough and you might pick up a word they use too.

More likely Lodestar is the codeword for the deep state to begin its coup d'etat.

[calimary]

103. And knowing Mike Pence likes to use that word,

someone shrewdly determined to conceal his/her identity would use a Mike Pence word to set up a wild goose chase. Throw people off the scent. Point ‘em in another direction. It’ll work. For awhile anyway.

[dameatball]

15. Pence

[CTyankee]

17. Can someoone explain the question to me?

Thanks to whoever can...

[jberryhill]

20. You may note that umpteen threads have been posted....

...referring to an anonymous OP in the NYT published today, by a person the NYT claims is a senior administration official, who is attempting to justify using Trump to advance an agenda on the part of a group of like-minded others in the administration, and that we need not worry about anything bad happening because they have Trump under control.

[CTyankee]

22. OK. Guess I didn't read that section of the NYT today...hmm...

thanks, jjberryhill!

[grantcart]

72. Its tomorrow's paper

[marylandblue]

24. It doesn't sound like they really have him under control that well

Rather it sounds like they are struggling and need help.

[yardwork]

21. Pence.

[Solly Mack]

25. Someone as delusional as Trump

so, probably, Pence.

[scheming daemons]

26. I don't think Pence had the balls to write this.

[Solly Mack]

32. I don't think the letter took nerve or guts or daring.

Well, maybe nerve - as in "You've got some nerve" hypocrisy statement.

Maybe it's another equally as delusional member of that mad house... but maybe not.

Maybe it was the mad house comedian because that letter was a joke.

[jberryhill]

45. There's a cowardly aspect to it

This person is attempting to come through the collapse of Trump unscathed. They want to have their cake and eat it too.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

84. Yes ! One thing that stuck out to me - "We've accomplished a lot" Besides being

bullshit - why would someone include this? I always think - how would an honest man/woman react. If I was merely trying to "out" the prez - I really don't think accomplishments would enter into the OPEd at all. so, perhaps it is someone with an eye to future power?

[madinmaryland]

48. Maybe Mother wrote it. nt

[Blue_Tires]

27. maybe....?

Link to tweet

[Vinca]

28. I'm thinking Pompeo because the Op-Ed references a flip-flop within a week on something.

Remember recently when Pompeo was going back to North Korea and the night before he was supposed to go Dear Leader (ours, not theirs) called it off? Nikki Haley is a good guess, too, but she's separated a bit from the day-to-day batshittiness (new word) by being in New York much of the time.

[berni_mccoy]

30. Elaine Chao, Secretary of Labor

See: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211097195

[Ilsa]

31. NYT wouldn't publish it if it was Pence.

It would be too self-serving.

[C_U_L8R]

33. Trump himself

or one of his many idiotic aliases. It's the Sybil Presidency.

[kozar]

34. can we all breathe and agree?

The RW's dont think as we do... So can we stop assuming and go with our gut feelings. We tend to look for a wrong word, a wrong letter,, and we have been getting destroyed for years. Let's all stop,,, breathe, listen to our inside,, and then post? this is what RW uses against us, that one little thing we tend to focus on.

Koz

[jezebel321]

36. Dan Coats. DNI

[ADX]

40. That's not a bad guess...

...not bad at all...

[LonePirate]

43. Very interesting guess. Coats and Pence are my prime suspects.

I suppose it could also be Haley. It is not any of the former military officers or obvious toadies like Ross or Pompeo.

[triron]

69. That's Lawrence O'Donnell's guess.

[honest.abe]

75. Yep.

Makes sense. I suspect he will be fired by noon tomorrow if not already..

This is getting interesting.

[zenmeta4]

95. Dan Coats - Russell Kirk quote in Op-ed and Dan Coats' has quoted him before

The "Free Minds, Free Markets, and Free People" in the Op-Ed is by Russell Kirk. Dan Coats quoted Russell Kirk in the following article [link:https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/americas-youth-a-crisis-of-character/|

[Bernardo de La Paz]

96. Interesting. Welcome to DU. . . . nt

[ecstatic]

38. In Sarah's response she said "he..." She could be trying to throw us

off with the gender and by using such strong language. So I'm going to vote her first, KellyAnn 2nd. It's probably the person we least expect.

Link to tweet

[sprinkleeninow]

90. Wait! Wait! "His accomplishments in less than two years have been astounding."

Yeah, they sure have: ZERO accomplishments for the benefit of the nation are astounding. Or, OTOH, their so-called accomplishments have done over and beyond damage and destruction. Taking us backwards. It's an ongoing nightmare.

[torius]

41. John Barron

with some help forming sentences.

[voteearlyvoteoften]

42. I'm going with Don Jr

He did another open recently .

[R B Garr]

44. I'm going with Mattis. It's gotta be someone with military

connections. Someone who straddles that world more plus the Washington elites.

Edit: because the military has the Duty, Honor, Country motto ingrained and there seems to a huge consensus to keep Trump in check as their honor code.

[populistdriven]

49. Either Elaine Chao or Robert E. Lighthizer

Based on analysis of writing style and content.

[DeminPennswoods]

50. Let's ask ourselves: "who benefits?"

Last edited Wed Sep 5, 2018, 08:42 PM - Edit history (1)

Who benefits? The author is clearly a conservative and someone who has been with the Trump admin from the beginning.

Kelly is conservative, but not especially political. He cares about order, not deregulation, etc.
Mattis cares about the military and national security. Another relatively unpolitical guy.
Sessions cares about setting America back to the 1850s.
Pompeo is a possibility as the op-ed references foreign policy and he's a card-carrying rw former rep.
Sarah Sanders is strictly PR, she wouldn't be in the room for a lot of the stuff in the op-ed.
Mnuchin is another guy who only cares about what he can get out of govt service for himself.
Mulvaney is possible since he's a tea-bagger and is down with all the policies being enacted.
Chao, Perry, Carson, don't have enough access to know about the things in the op-ed.

But Pence is another story. First, he believes deeply in all the conservative polices (and then some) cited in the op-ed. Second, he's been with Trump from the get-go and would have been involved in any talks about implementing the 25th Amendment's actions. In fact, the VP would have to lead the pack. Third, if Trump is removed, who becomes President? None other than Mike Pence. What better way to grease the skids for Trump's removal than an anonymouse op-ed in the NYT?

[marylandblue]

52. Nikki Haley benefits

She wants to run for President someday. She might want to primary Trump and use this to make her look like she's been the power behind the throne.

[DeminPennswoods]

60. Yes, but she's at the UN, not involved

in much of what the op-ed talks about.

[marylandblue]

64. Actually she is involved

The article spoke about dealing with allies and national security. Also mentioned the 25th amendment, which implies a cabinet official. She was the victim of one of Trump's sudden policy shifts, when she said one thing and he soon contradicted her. Also, she doesn't have to be physically present in the White House. Gossip flies by phone. And the praise of tax reform and deregulation suggests an economic conservative, like her, not a social conservative like Pence.

I don't think the person actually works in the White House, because there don't seem to be any senior officials left there who aren't toadies.

Oh, and if it were Pence, he wouldn't write an Op Ed, he would just do it.

[DeminPennswoods]

65. Plenty of viable suspects!

nt

[marylandblue]

66. Yes, I am buying extra popcorn.

[populistdriven]

67. You can't spell Chaos without Chao

[NNadir]

51. Who cares?

The fact is that they're all unwilling to use the constitutional amendment to save their country.

[marylandblue]

53. They may not have enough support in the Cabinet yet

Some of them are real moral zeros, like DeVos.

[WheelWalker]

54. Deep Throat

[Bobbie Jo]

55. I think it's

Don McGhan.

Just a hunch...

[scheming daemons]

56. He has no reason to be anonymous... Trump is letting him go next month.

[CTyankee]

57. OK, I checked my paper version of the NYT from this morning and it wasn't there!

I did see it in the online NYT.

WHY?

[Bobbie Jo]

58. That's why I thought

it might be him, as he’s on his way out with nothing to lose. A last ditch effort to salvage what’s left of his rep.

[scheming daemons]

100. He can't salvage his rep if he doesn't put his name on it

[Bobbie Jo]

102. The name will be revealed eventually.

[cynatnite]

62. I think it's Mattis or Kelley...

Kelley has been treated like a dog and maybe he's sick of it. This is his way of calling himself a patriot and protecting the country. It's more self-serving, if it's him, IMO. It's a way of covering his ass if he's fired by tRump. I've never liked Kelley and his past comments has his thinking more aligned with tRump's.

I'm leaning more towards Mattis, though. He's struck me as being more focused on protecting the country rather than serving tRump's agenda. Then again, I think he'd resign and then speak out. He doesn't strike me as someone who'd write something like this anonymously.

[oberliner]

63. It is definitely not any of these people listed

It is likely someone no one here has heard of.

[marylandblue]

68. Not too many Sr. officials we haven't heard of

[Mosby]

89. My guess is nick ayers.

[JHan]

70. I'd wager it's someone who works with Pence, not Pence himself.

[Equinox Moon]

73. "A-moral" is the biggest clue - Pence

[Lucinda]

74. Don McGahn n/t

[JI7]

80. Don McGahn is leaving

[tirebiter]

76. The White House janitor

Dude was in the oval office after hours, got disgusted with the food droppings, sat down at the keyboard and knocked the op ed out of the park.

[RandySF]

77. Dan Coats

[PearliePoo2]

92. Yep, Lawrence was pretty convincing tonight. nt.

[Grasswire2]

78. Dan Coats.

Lawrence laid it out.

[Liberty Belle]

79. Could it be Jeff Sessions? He would benefit by having Trump gone and has shown some spine lately.

The a-moral comment sounds like something he would say, and as a former member of Congress he might have concerns about the foreign policy debacles too.

[BadGimp]

83. Don "I'm Gone" McGhann

[NickPeace]

85. I Think Sessions

Just a thought ...

[Garrett78]

87. Dan Coats representing a small group of senior officials--with Coats willing to take the fall.

Coats is the "I," but the piece was essentially written by several people.

[JonLP24]

93. Daniel P Walsh

Just a guess.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Office#Office_of_the_Chief_of_Staff

[Laura PourMeADrink]

94. Who it is Not. Not Sarah

[DeminPennswoods]

98. Guesses from The Last Word panel

O'Donnell thinks it's Coates because he knows Coates from his senate staffer days, the reference to McCain, a good friend and mentor to Coates, the fact that Coates has publically challenged Trump's claims about Russia not intefering in the election(s) and that at 75 this is Coates' last job.

Ron Klain also thinks it's Coates.
Jason Johnson thinks the op-ed was a combined effort of 2 or more people.
Jennifer Rubin felt it was someone a step below Cabinet level. She also noted the Russell Kirk quote.

When I first read the op-ed, the part about how much of the conservative agenda has been accomplished despite Trump struck me as oddly out of place. It was like the writer was trying to rehabilitate his/her reputation in advance. Someone who still will have political ambitions once the Trump presidency ends. That's not Coates. Then you have the part where as O'Donnell pointed out, author turns into reporter and cites someone else's direct experience. The op-ed is well written, but the "editor" couldn't quite smooth out all the bumps. When considered this way, it tends to support both Johnson's and Rubin's take: 2 or more authors, but pulled together by someone a step below, perhaps a speechwriter. I'm thinking maybe Pence could have been the person who gathered all the comments then had his speechwriter put the op-ed together and his office contacted the NYT. Remember the Times said the author reached out to them a few days before its submission, asking if they were interested in an op-ed piece.

[SkyDancer]

99. It's nobody in the cabinet

and is an epic troll job of Trump.

People on 4Chan could pull this off without thinking 2x about it. It's a classic troll job and those of us who are members of the gaming culture are very familiar with this sort of thing.

Basically, you analyze something, you study the situation, and you overload yourself with information. The swerve to make Pence look like he did it is completely intentional. Think about it, the VP doing this, the second in command, Trump's insecurity, planting disinformation? It's completely working and Trump is losing his mind over all this.

The end result? Trump questions everything, begins blaming people constantly, pissing off everyone in his party and in his own cabinet. He becomes more unstable but this time his own cabinet begins to turn on him because he no longer trusts them at all and is projecting onto them. Trump makes their lives a literal hell and in doing so, his cabinet no longer supports him.

It's trolling. With a purpose.

[calimary]

101. Dan Coats.

[Jersey Devil]

104. The CEO of Nike

Nike CEO got incredibly fed up with all the right wing social media posts about how to burn Nike sneakers and equipment and decided to turn the tables on Trump.

[0rganism]

105. it's Q for sure

now we know Q stands for Queeg

[PRETZEL]

106. I think the actual author is Raj Shah

in the context that the Op-Ed says that there are a group of like minded people, that group needs a spokesperson.

I wouldn't put it past that most, if not all, the people named in the poll are part of this group.