What's Tony Thinking

Woodward, Trump and Anonymous

Shakespeare has nothing on us! Decaying Rome, we hear your siren call!

No sooner does Bob Woodward, he of Watergate fame, be leaked on his forthcoming book, Fear, Trump In the White House, an (other) look inside the Trump Whitehouse than . . .

another Anonymous (Deep Throat 2018?) should appear. Woodward is a magnet for these guys, or so it seems.

Trump does Richard II type fury, thrashing in all directions. And the upshot?

Not much is my guess.

One (Trump sympathetic) observer says, “Hey, the guy is supposed to be a disrupter. So what do you expect? He’s doing his job. Besides, the economy is booming.”

The Trump base is obviously cast in concrete. “We shall not be moved.” “Barnacles-r-us.”

The intelligentsia (my crowd) are outraged.

Is “Anonymous” fighting the good fight? Or is he a coward for failing to stand tall and identify him or herself?

Some folks I respect, and who are not Trump supporters by a long stretch, agree with Trump on this one. “Anonymous” is gutless. Perhaps not gutless says David Frum, but ill-advised.

I’m not so sure. I can imagine people on the inside who are trying to protect the country, the republic. If you identify yourself, you make a ton of money on the lecture circuit, but you aren’t any longer holding back the flood.

Anonymous heroes in the age of Twitter, Facebook, and all the rest seem quite an anachronism. So they have my support. Shout-out to anachronisms, curmudgeons, and other mollusks.

My question to “Anonymous,” is what would cause you to tip? What would cause you to go public? What would occasion a principled and public resignation? Where is the line?

Mike McCurry, press secretary to Obama, recommends a different strategy altogether. A Trump-less season. A Lenten fast. Speak not the name. Let reporters report from the field of the doing and misdoings of EPA, CIA, DOD and the Department of the Interior. But of Trump by name, silence. Mums-the-word. Donald who?

This, proposes MuCurry, would truly and surely drive The Donald nuts. He may well be right. And it will never happen.

Of Trump, “Anonymous” said he is “amoral.” Note the word. Not “immoral,” but “amoral.” Without lines, limits, principles that bind or direct. He flails about, saying this, then that, though the two may be wholly contradictory. “A professional liar,” said one senior official.

Amoral he may be, but there is a discernible direction. Self-interest uber alles. Writ large. Noblesse oblige — HOGWASH!

America First. Of course, the short-term attractions of “America First!” may prove, in  the long-term, not to be in our interest at all. But that’s another matter. He does have a core conviction: selfishness.