What New York Times editorial? The one that CNN and the other cable news alphabets lost their minds over back in 2018. Media excitedly pitched names of possible cabinet inner circle members. Today, some dude no one has ever heard of pushed his way from anonymity to claim his progressive accolades:
Donald Trump is a man without character. It’s why I wrote “A Warning”…and it’s why me & my colleagues have spoken out against him (in our own names) for months. It’s time for everyone to step out of the shadows. My statement: https://t.co/yuhTgZ4bkq
— Miles Taylor (@MilesTaylorUSA) October 28, 2020
Sad trombone!
The high fives he was expecting don’t seem to be materializing:
The revelation of the identity of “Anonymous” calls into question whether the NYT had ample grounds to allow him to write without identifying him. I figured it had to be someone at cabinet level, at least.
— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) October 28, 2020
There’s a legitimate role for anonymity in journalism but that op-ed embodied one of its worst uses, where you obscure the source of information primarily to make the source sound more authoritative than he really is.
(Watch for this on transition stories!)
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 28, 2020
Miles Taylor, previously a lifelong government employee, was a glorified latte fetcher who hid his name to mislead readers into thinking that his editorial was written by someone other than a dude who had little to no access to Trump.
Wow. Miles Taylor wasn't even listed on DHS's senior leadership page when NYT published his op-ed because he was just a policy advisor, not even chief of staff.
Here's a snapshot of top leadership at DHS a few weeks after the op-ed was published. (October 2018) pic.twitter.com/3CPzKcdB6N
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) October 28, 2020
The NYT answered a bunch of written questions about why they decided to publish the op-ed, and defended the use of "senior administration official."
They used the phrase "upper echelons of an administration." But Taylor wasn't even upper echelons of DHS.https://t.co/B6PDPyisvc pic.twitter.com/PMvxAhStfG
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) October 28, 2020
In reality, Taylor was a Democrat who became a CNN contributor.
The Lib crush of the week Miles Taylor said on CNN that he was a “lifelong Republican.”
I've got the receipts.
He donated to Obama in 2008. pic.twitter.com/dWjA6PI4Zm
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 20, 2020
Taylor was more interesting before he confirmed that he and his drama were nothingburgers. He didn’t mislead people by himself, the New York Times aided him by publishing his editorial as “anonymous.” This is the actual interesting story here: the NYT ran this human grumpy cat’s hot take as though he was some senior advisor. This dude hadn’t worked a day of his professional life in the private sector until he somehow parlayed his office assistant career into a CNN contributorship so instead of working for the government he can talk about working for the government. Not only is the “free” press dead but with it any standards for content, accuracy, or relevancy.
The 9/5/18 NYT op-ed described Miles Taylor as "senior official" & NYT op-ed editor said that is "upper echelon of an admin." But when Anonymous op-ed published Taylor wasn't on DHS leadership website — he didn't appear as chief of staff there til 2/21/19https://t.co/OTsRh4AeS3 pic.twitter.com/eKhTUw7x5V
— JERRY DUNLEAVY (@JerryDunleavy) October 28, 2020
Can we go back to talking about the Bidens and their deals with communist China now?
(P.S. Taylor is the top Twitter trend right now. Tony Bobulinski, who spoke last night with Tucker Carlson, generated over 1.6 million tweets last night and was kept at #27.)
*UPDATE:
A CNN spox just told me that Miles Taylor will remain a contributor despite lying to Anderson Cooper. CNN cannot have it both ways — slamming Trump for his lies, yet condoning a very big and blatant one by its own contributor.
— ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) October 28, 2020
Well, they didn’t fire one of their contributors for “Toobin” it on a work Zoom call, either.
There’s always a tweet, they say:
Many thousands of people work for our government. With that said, a former DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEE named Miles Taylor, who I do not know (never heard of him), said he left & is on the open arms Fake News circuit. Said to be a real “stiff”. They will take anyone against us!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 18, 2020
