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It’s Trump or the Times; it can’t be both
“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner
Op-Ed Commentary
“You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”
Thus spoke Alice to the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, but U.S. President Donald Trump isn’t exactly one of the “best people” in this vale of tears and who in the world would call Washington DC “wonderful” when the Mad Hatter appears to be in charge?
This is serious, folks and it’s not “fake news.” A self-identified “senior official” in the West Wing of the White House has said a lunatic has his fevered fingers right next to the secret coded numbers that could ignite a U.S. nuclear strike against who knows who and start the dominoes falling for World War Three.
You don’t think so? Remember this quote? “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” That’s what Trump said to North Korea’s President Kim Jong-un in a news conference Aug. 8, 2017 and many around the world shuddered. And then, a few days later, a very interesting thing happened. Former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (Trump fired him.) played down the threat, saying: “I think Americans should sleep well at night, have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days.”
Isn’t that exactly the allegation the anonymous “senior” administration official made in the New York Times this week that a “resistance” has broken out in the Oval Office with several nervous administration officials going rogue and secretly sabotaging some of Trump’s craziest and most dangerous notions for his sake, the administration’s sake – and most importantly – for the sake of all of us living on this sorely divided planet?
In the circumstances, I think this is a reasonable supposition on my part. Go ahead and prove me wrong if you can, but I seriously doubt you can. Let me point out a few more things in this bizarre world we now inhabit whether we like it or not. Some are criticizing the New York Times for running the incendiary column anonymously and they mount some strong arguments, the best being that in the public interest the author of such serious information, which could potentially endanger all of us, should be made public.
Trump himself is saying the same thing, fuming that the author is a member of the so-called “deep state” within his administration and out to get him. In a recent interview with Fox News, Trump said it was “unfair” for such a sensational allegation to be made anonymously because there’s no way to discredit it.
As paranoid as Trump’s thinking sometimes appears to be, I think he has a point and I’m not going to take sides one way or the other on his demand that The Times out his accuser. But I’ve worked in the business for years and understand the process in these difficult situations and would like to make a few points of my own.
Somebody, a he or a she, has obviously given The New York Times this information and that “somebody” must be a member of Trump’s inner circle in the West Wing or The Times would never have published it because its own reputation would be on the line and if the allegation was false it would destroy the paper. I therefore think it’s reasonable to conclude that there must be some sort of a “resistance” going on in the inner circle of the White House staff to protect the American people from the machinations of their own president.
That’s an unprecedented situation in the history of the United States and in the history of the world for that matter. There’s no denying it!
However, and this is a big “however,” if the allegation of an inside “resistance” within the White House proves to be false in any serious way you’re going to see the fall of one of the world’s greatest newspapers and a vindication for Trump that could win him the next election.
Somebody is going to lose big here and I don’t think it’s going to be too many days before we find out.
– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist, who from the day Trump was elected has maintained the American people would “fire” him before the end of his term. He still maintains that.
