It was the wrong time for 32-year-old Miles Taylor to announce he was the much-celebrated “Anonymous” Trump official who wrote a New York Times op-ed and then a New York Times-bestseller book trashing the president.
It came in the last days of the campaign, as the establishment media are bloviating that they can’t rush to cover the Hunter Biden evidence from the New York Post because they have such high standards to confirm their facts.
None of them had such a standard when they gushed over Captain Anonymous in September of 2018. No one needed to know who he was to spread his claims far and wide. ABC, CBS, and NBC poured out 15 minutes of excitable coverage the first night.
The New York Times editorial-page staff described him only as a “senior administration official,” setting off a guessing game that it was Kellyanne Conway, or the Attorney General, or the Secretary of Defense. Instead, it was a 30-year-old deputy chief of staff at Homeland Security, someone barely old enough to be elected to the Senate. Taylor had only been quoted once by name in the New York Times, in the fall of 2017.
The Times wouldn’t even notify its own news reporters who was Captain Anonymous. After a year, Times reporter Annie Karni wrote an article about how long this charade had lasted. It included a comical quote from Joe Klein, who enriched himself in the Clinton years with the Anonymous novel Primary Colors, all the while lying that he wasn’t the author. “We’re way past the point of being coy,” complained Klein, as if he could strike an ethical pose!
Taylor’s publisher, Hachette, churned out a first print run of 500,000 copies. Such public-spirited anonymity was going to make some people a tidy profit.
But the dust cover of the Anonymous book, simply titled A Warning, was loaded with liberal-media plaudits. Journalists applauded his long-running literary stunt:
"What Americans should actually be concerned about when it comes to Trump and his administration."― Rachel Maddow.
"A scathing portrait of a president and administration in chaos."―Susan Page, USA Today.
"In a year overflowing with books about Donald Trump...[A Warning] is set to be the most-discussed political book of the year."― TIME ("Must Read Books of 2019").
"This slim volume is...the sounding of a national alarm."― Ron Elving, NPR.
"Offers eye-popping insider details"―CNN.
From behind his smelly veil, Taylor contended his anonymity was a moral act. “Removing my identity from the equation deprives [Trump] of an opportunity to create a distraction...What will he do when there is no person to attack, only an idea?"
But this “idea,” that Trump was too unhinged to be president, was so omnipresent in the liberal media, it was only the anonymity that gave Taylor’s words any cachet. He even lied on national TV to his employers at CNN, denying his charade.
Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple was one exception this rule. In 2018, Wemple praised all the investigative journalism exposing Trump, but mocked this piece. “Like most anonymous quotes and tracts, this one is a PR stunt.” Now, Wemple writes “The New York Times got its traffic bonanza. It touched off a national debate. It owned social media. And now it’s getting the payback that it deserves.” But is the Times or Taylor going to suffer any real payback, or just a payoff?
As the media’s idea of ethics has wrapped itself around a mission – removing Trump from office – whatever helps that mission has been defined as what is ethical. Any narrative against Joe Biden can’t possibly be substantiated. The victory of liberalism equals journalism. The victory of Democrats defines democracy.
