‘Lodestar’: is this word the key to unmasking the author of scathing anti-Trump New York Times op-ed?
One theory running rampant on the internet concludes the author was none other than Vice-President Mike Pence – who has used that one unusual word in numerous speeches and sound bites
It was a metaphoric Molotov, a middle finger, a knife in the back. Even in the midst of a US administration and news cycle that powers a ceaseless hamster wheel of drama, The New York Times op-ed from an anonymous “senior” official in the Trump White House was jaw-dropping.
The author declared that he or she is part of the “resistance” against the president, “working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations”. The piece slammed Donald Trump for his inadequacies and volatility and declared him a danger to the country. But lucky for America, the author said, there’s a group of subversives trying to keep him at bay.
But the explosion the piece created wasn’t really about the what; it was mostly about the who. It was also about the spectacle, the joy of the adrenaline-fuelled race. It was the starting whistle setting off another remarkable round of Washington’s unofficial sport: gossip.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who previously served as Trump’s CIA director, said he was not the author and slammed the Times for publishing the piece.
“It’s not mine,” Pompeo told reporters during a trip to New Delhi, India. “If it’s accurate ... they should not well have chosen to take a disgruntled, deceptive, bad actor’s word for anything and put it in their newspaper.”
A spokesman for US Vice-President Mike Pence’s office also criticised the Times and said Pence does not write anonymous opinion columns.
“The Vice-President puts his name on his Op-Eds. The @nytimes should be ashamed and so should the person who wrote the false, illogical, and gutless op-ed. Our office is above such amateur acts,” Pence spokesman Jarrod Agen said on Twitter.