The president is not amused. In fact, the one-two punch this week from Bob Woodward’s book detailing the dysfunction in the White House, and Wednesday’s unsigned New York Times op-ed that seemed to verify Woodward’s work even as the White House slammed it, has the administration writhing and reeling.
Here are a few points to focus on.
First, the details that have emerged from early takes on Woodward’s book don’t come as a surprise. From the start of the administration it’s been clear the West Wing is staffed, by and large, with amateurs, and the Oval Office is home to one of the most unqualified presidents in history. As the Los Angeles Times argued in the “Our Dishonest President” series last year, the man is a menace to all that our nation has traditionally stood for.
He also thinks he’s an emperor more than a president, and his management technique relies on bullying and intimidation. Fealty from subordinates and winning whatever fight is in front of him is all that matters to him. The nation has known that; Woodward and the op-ed writer are just giving readers more salacious details about how much disarray there is in the White House.
Second, Trump and his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, were teed off that the op-ed writer chose not to sign the piece. Whether the New York Times should have published an anonymous op-ed is an interesting question. It doesn’t always happen this way, but the usual standard for allowing a source to go unidentified in a news story is whether the information provided is true and in the public interest, and whether identifying the source will likely lead to severe repercussions — arrest, dismissal from a job, physical harm.
It’s safe to assume that if that op-ed came with a name on, that person would have been fired by dinnertime Wednesday.
But note, too, that the administration — and particularly Sanders — lashed out at the lack of attribution. That’s a rich criticism coming from an administration that, like its predecessors, routinely holds briefings and phone calls with reporters that require the reporters not to identify the administration officials involved by name. So in the administration’s view, anonymity in the media is fine so long as it fits the president’s agenda.
Trump et al. can’t have it both ways.
Finally, after the op-ed appeared online Wednesday the president tweeted, “TREASON?”
No, per federal law:
“Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason.”
If anything, the anonymous sources in Woodward’s book, and the author of the op-ed, are seeking to protect the American people and the U.S. government from a president and top advisors who seek to dismantle it.
There ought to be a medal for that.