Perhaps the events of the past two weeks the death of John McCain, Bob Woodwards new book exposing the inter-workings of the White House and the New York Times publication of an unsigned Op-Ed piece by a high ranking member of the Trump administration will encourage Kansas Senators Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran to stand up and put country above party.
McCain was praised in his eulogies for being a maverick who put county above party. His last act in the Senate was to go against party lines to cast the deciding vote which saved the Affordable Care Act.
If Moran or Roberts had the courage to go against their party and cast a deciding vote to save affordable health care insurance for 10 million low and middle income Americans, McCain would not have had to make the trip back to Washington to vote.
As only he could do, Pulitzer prize winning journalist Woodward put in countless hours talking to Trump administration staffers and former staff members to gather information for his latest book, Fear: Trump in the White House. A book critic once complained that Woodward checked his facts until they weep with boredom.
Woodward writes that, The reality was that the United States in 2017 was tethered to the words and actions of an emotionally overwrought, mercurial and unpredictable leader.
He also reveals that Trumps order in April of last year to assassinate Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was ignored by Secretary of Defense James Mattis. This backs up the revelations in the New York Times unsigned Op-Ed piece entitled, I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.
The writer claims that members of administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
The author believes that the root of the problem is the presidents amorality. Anyone who works with him knows that he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.
Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitious rants and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back, according to the unsigned Op-Ed piece.
It is equally alarming that during his first 588 days in office, Trump has uttered 4,229 false or misleading statements, according to fact checkers.
As far as publishing an unsigned letter to the editor, ordinarily the Blade-Empire wouldnt do it. However, if an unsigned Op-Ed piece from a highly regarded source which concludes that there might be a threat to our democracy, then that sheds an entirely different light on the subject. Not that such a letter or Op-Ed column would ever land on the desk of the Blade-Empires publisher.
What the New York Times did was to put conscience above principle.
The Concordia Blade-Empire
