THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for October 3 - 4, 2009
for October 3 - 4, 2009
Is the Hardly Strictly Fest More Popular Than Jesus?
There were so many people at the fest thatthis was the closest I came to seeing John Prine!
[photo by Paul Iorio]
Sunday, March 29, 2020
Thursday, September 6, 2018
Why Evidence Points to Stephen Miller as the Op-Ed Author
By Paul Iorio
There is of course a big public Op-Ed Guessing Game going on right now, but those guessing vice president Mike Pence, or Kellyanne Conway are missing the main clue: motivation.
Who among president Trump's inner group would be ultra-motivated to turn? And who would have the incentive to write such an op-ed for "the failing New York Times" (to use president Trump's coinage)?
The best answer, in September 2018, is...allies of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who Trump regularly humiliates, chastises and threatens in public.
Trump's policy adviser and main speechwriter, Stephen Miller, has deep roots with Sessions, with whom Miller worked as communications director nearly a decade ago, when Sessions was a U.S. Senator from Alabama. (And it's worth noting that Sessions had a warm friendship with his Senate colleague John McCain, who is praised in the op-ed.)
There are also clues in the language of the op-ed article itself that point to Miller.
I analyzed unique or distinctive phrases in the piece and matched them up against several names of various top level officials in the White House in a Google search (and in a negative search that excluded all results related to the op-ed). And I found that Miller used phrases similar to those in the article.
First, there is the phrase "first principle," used in the op-ed, which doesn't turn up in too many names related to Trump. Even a casual Google search shows Miller being quoted using "first principle"; here's an example here, quoted a couple years ago.
https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/trump-immigration-plan-the-definition-of-compassion
Then there is the phrase "robust military," a term that one can put in a Google search with Miller's name and find many results.
Here's but one case in which he used the phrase:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/12/north-korea-fires-ballistic-missile-first-test-trump-administration/
He also has been quoted as using a variation of the phrase "everyday citizen" with his use of the phrase "everyday guys" in this White House press briefing.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/press-briefing-press-secretary-sarah-sanders-senior-policy-advisor-stephen-miller-080217/
To be sure, others in Trump's inner group -- like U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Defense Secretary James Mattis -- have also used some of the same phrases. But only Miller, with his strong connection to Sessions, has both the linguistic links and the evident motivation.
And then there is this: the similarity between the finale of his op-ed, calling for all Americans to join as one, and a comment Miller wrote in his high school year book in 2003, quoting Theodore Roosevelt's call for American unity.
Here's the op-ed line:
"The real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans."
And here's what Miller wrote in his high school yearbook in 2003, quoting Theodore Roosevelt, as quoted in the October 9th, 2017, edition of the New York Times:
“There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 percent Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else."
Add to all this the fact that Miller has a genuine comfort level with writing op-ed and commentary pieces for newspapers; in fact, he initially made his name with a series of controversial editorials for Duke University's The Chronicle when he was a student there.
It's worth noting that the Internet is abuzz with the fact that vice president Pence used the word "lodestar" in a speech at the U.N. last fall, and in at least one other speech, and they point to that as a clue that the veep might have been the op-ed writer (since the Times editorial uses "lodestar," too).
But Pence's words were almost certainly written by a speechwriter, perhaps his main speechwriter, Stephen Ford, a hard right ally of the Koch brothers.
Or perhaps, for this special occasion at the U.N., Pence borrowed Trump's own star scripter, none other than Stephen Miller himself, for a one-off.
By Paul Iorio
There is of course a big public Op-Ed Guessing Game going on right now, but those guessing vice president Mike Pence, or Kellyanne Conway are missing the main clue: motivation.
Who among president Trump's inner group would be ultra-motivated to turn? And who would have the incentive to write such an op-ed for "the failing New York Times" (to use president Trump's coinage)?
The best answer, in September 2018, is...allies of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who Trump regularly humiliates, chastises and threatens in public.
Trump's policy adviser and main speechwriter, Stephen Miller, has deep roots with Sessions, with whom Miller worked as communications director nearly a decade ago, when Sessions was a U.S. Senator from Alabama. (And it's worth noting that Sessions had a warm friendship with his Senate colleague John McCain, who is praised in the op-ed.)
There are also clues in the language of the op-ed article itself that point to Miller.
I analyzed unique or distinctive phrases in the piece and matched them up against several names of various top level officials in the White House in a Google search (and in a negative search that excluded all results related to the op-ed). And I found that Miller used phrases similar to those in the article.
First, there is the phrase "first principle," used in the op-ed, which doesn't turn up in too many names related to Trump. Even a casual Google search shows Miller being quoted using "first principle"; here's an example here, quoted a couple years ago.
https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/trump-immigration-plan-the-definition-of-compassion
Then there is the phrase "robust military," a term that one can put in a Google search with Miller's name and find many results.
Here's but one case in which he used the phrase:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/12/north-korea-fires-ballistic-missile-first-test-trump-administration/
He also has been quoted as using a variation of the phrase "everyday citizen" with his use of the phrase "everyday guys" in this White House press briefing.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/press-briefing-press-secretary-sarah-sanders-senior-policy-advisor-stephen-miller-080217/
To be sure, others in Trump's inner group -- like U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Defense Secretary James Mattis -- have also used some of the same phrases. But only Miller, with his strong connection to Sessions, has both the linguistic links and the evident motivation.
And then there is this: the similarity between the finale of his op-ed, calling for all Americans to join as one, and a comment Miller wrote in his high school year book in 2003, quoting Theodore Roosevelt's call for American unity.
Here's the op-ed line:
"The real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans."
And here's what Miller wrote in his high school yearbook in 2003, quoting Theodore Roosevelt, as quoted in the October 9th, 2017, edition of the New York Times:
“There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 percent Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else."
Add to all this the fact that Miller has a genuine comfort level with writing op-ed and commentary pieces for newspapers; in fact, he initially made his name with a series of controversial editorials for Duke University's The Chronicle when he was a student there.
It's worth noting that the Internet is abuzz with the fact that vice president Pence used the word "lodestar" in a speech at the U.N. last fall, and in at least one other speech, and they point to that as a clue that the veep might have been the op-ed writer (since the Times editorial uses "lodestar," too).
But Pence's words were almost certainly written by a speechwriter, perhaps his main speechwriter, Stephen Ford, a hard right ally of the Koch brothers.
Or perhaps, for this special occasion at the U.N., Pence borrowed Trump's own star scripter, none other than Stephen Miller himself, for a one-off.
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