It’s tough out there for a “Never Trump” guy who is nowhere near as interesting as he thinks he is.
Miles Taylor, the former Department of Homeland Security staffer who authored an anonymous New York Times op-ed in 2018 claiming he was part of an anti-President Trump resistance inside the White House, has resurfaced as the subject of a Washington Post profile. The article, which reads like a hagiography, is a bizarre mishmash of glowing praise for Taylor, advertisements for his political services (he is more or less unemployed at the moment), and various defenses for his rotten behavior throughout the “anonymous” episode.
The profile also features an awful lot of hand-wringing from Taylor, who says he is scared and uncertain about his future. The story likewise features Taylor bragging about how proud he is for having opposed the Trump administration while also drawing a paycheck from the Trump administration.
Unsurprisingly, the article makes no mention of the fact that Taylor stood by silently as former National Security Council official Victoria Coates took all the heat for his op-ed, including her eventual demotion and reassignment to the Department of Energy.
Instead, the profile includes passages such as this:
The report then goes on to detail Taylor’s supposedly heroic efforts to thwart the president’s agenda, including an attempt to limit the number of countries affected by a proposed travel ban. Really, though, the article, like Taylor’s stupid book, is mostly an excuse for self-promotion and butt-covering (“Proximity to Trump’s policies would haunt Taylor,” “Taylor says he delegated most immigration policy work to underlings,” and “he envisioned a dramatic en-masse resignation, including Cabinet secretaries and their top aides, to prove the point that Trump was unfit for office,” etc.).
Oddly enough, the profile is also careful to mention, repeatedly, that Taylor is on the run because he has allegedly received numerous death threats from the Left and the Right since outing himself as the author of the anonymous op-ed. Though one would be foolish to doubt this claim, as any political position these days tends to inspire some form of threat online, Taylor’s reported attempts to conceal his identity and whereabouts seem both unnecessary and even self-indulgent.
Consider the following passages:
Worried that he’ll be attacked, Taylor now employs private security. One recent afternoon, a large, stern man guarded the entrance to the location where Taylor has holed up for the day. Inside, Taylor stuffs rolls of toilet paper into a backpack because he’s close to running out at one of his other places of refuge. … When he ventures out of his hiding places, Taylor favors baseball caps pulled low and sunglasses. A mask serves the dual purpose of shielding him from infection by the coronavirus and concealing an identity that has become ever harder to camouflage as he’s upped his public presence by serving as a CNN contributor and talking head.
I write about this stuff for a living. I have seen Taylor’s face all over cable news. But I would not notice him at a supermarket even if he stood right next to me. He has that sort of “generic white guy” quality about him that defines most Washington, D.C., careerists. If I can’t pick him out of a lineup, then I guarantee Joe Public can’t do the same. All of this is to say: These security measures he has taken seem unnecessary — unless, of course, feeling important is the point, which would be consistent for Taylor.
As for legitimate criticisms of his sleazy behavior, including exaggerating his credentials for the op-ed and lying on CNN about whether he is the “anonymous” author, the Washington Post is Johnny-on-the-spot with defenses.
“As a device,” the Washington Post says of Taylor’s decision to go unnamed for his New York Times op-ed, “it was genius.”
“The intrigue about who might have written it — and the speculation that it might have been someone far above Taylor’s rank, perhaps even a member of the Cabinet — gave a then-shocking (though now commonplace) revelation all the sizzle that it would never have received if he’d put his name on it,” the report adds.
Well, yes. That is part of the problem, though, isn’t it? Both Taylor and the New York Times grossly exaggerated his credentials as a “senior” member of the Trump administration. We were lied to, but now, we are being told that it was a pretty “genius” device.
The article continues:
He also got slapped around a little for having denied being Anonymous in an on-air CNN interview, the network where he is now a contributor. It’s not the first time, however, that an “Anonymous” has falsely said he wasn’t Anonymous. Remember the denials from author Joe Klein when he anonymously wrote the buzzy book inspired by Bill and Hillary Clinton, “Primary Colors”?
Is this a paid advertisement or a news profile? It is hard to tell.
Anyway, in case you are still interested, the report concludes with a maudlin anecdote about Taylor crying with relief after President-elect Joe Biden was announced the winner of the 2020 election.
“On the Saturday after the presidential election, Taylor says a friend called him. The friend had news: The networks had declared Biden the winner of the presidency,” the report reads. “Taylor, a man of oceanic words, was speechless. Moments passed before the silence broke.”
It adds, “Miles Taylor was sobbing. They were tears of joy.”
I will leave it at that. There is no criticism I can add that is more insulting than those final lines.
