"The Gray Lady" Has Found Her Own "Deep Throat"

When Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post were investigating the corruption of the Nixon administration, they had a source high in the government that kept them on the right track and guided them to the truth.  To protect his identity, they called him "Deep Throat", and his identity was not known for decades.

Now we have another corrupt presidential administration, and the Trump administration may be even more dangerous for the country than Nixon was.

And to give the country the truth about Trump, The New York Times has found its own version of a modern Deep Throat. And they have taken a historic (and heroic) step in allowing this person (who they say is a senior official in the Trump administration) to publish an op-ed in their paper anonymously.

This person makes it clear that we have a dangerous situation. That situation has been created because Donald Trump is amoral, incompetent, and mentally unfit to hold the office of president.

This is not news. Most Americans already knew that Trump was amoral, incompetent, and mentally unfit. But it is slightly comforting to know that not all administration employees are complete morons. That many know they danger that Trump poses, and are trying to act to protect the country from Trump's worst excesses.

As expected, Trump is furious at what he sees as a betrayal. He has demanded that The New York Times turn the name of the anonymous op-ed writer over to him -- as a matter of national security. Of course, there is no national security matter involved, and The New York Times is not about to reveal that identity. Even if the name did become known, it wouldn't solve Trump's "problem". The writer is not the only member of the administration that feels Trump is amoral, incompetent, mentally unfit, and downright dangerous. Sources have said there are dozens in the administration that feel that way.

The Trump administration is in a state of chaos, and it has been for many months. That's also nothing new, but this op-ed lets us know it can't be fixed short of removing Trump from office.

There are those that say the anonymous writer should have identified himself (herself?) and taken their story to Congress. I don't think that would have worked. The Republicans who control Congress has made it clear that they will ignore any evidence of wrongdoing by Trump, and protect him at all costs. If this person had gone to Congress, NOTHING would have been done.

This op-ed has made something else clear. We can't just depend on anonymous people in the White House to rein Trump in. That's the job of Congress, and the only way to get Congress to fulfill their obligation is to vote the Democrats into the congressional majority.

We owe a debt of gratitude to The New York Times. They did the country a great service by publishing this op-ed. Here is that op-ed from the anonymous senior member of the Trump administration:

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.