The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘It’s Her’: Cruz Ally Victoria Coates Identified as ‘Anonymous’ Author

Posted on | April 15, 2020 | 1 Comment

Ted Cruz campaign adviser Victoria Coates in a March 2016 TV appearance.

Oh, of course, the anti-Trump mole in the White House is a woman.

Victoria Coates, an art history Ph.D. who served as an adviser to Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign, has been identified as “Anonymous,” administration sources tell RCP reporter Paul Sperry:

Ever since a “senior official in the Trump administration” penned an anonymous 2018 New York Times column attacking President Trump as unfit for office, Washington has been engrossed in a high-stakes whodunit. After an exhaustive investigation, the White House believes it’s cracked the case, identifying Trump’s turncoat as his former deputy national security adviser, Victoria Coates, according to people familiar with the internal probe.
Rather than fire Coates, the White House has quietly transferred her to the Department of Energy, where she awaits special assignment in Saudi Arabia — far from the president.
Trump effectively demoted Coates just four months after promoting her last fall to the No. 2 spot on his National Security Council. The move was made amid a whisper campaign, started in January, that identified Coates as “Anonymous,” the person who wrote the Times Op-Ed and a subsequent book, “A Warning,” claiming to be part of a cabal of “fellow Republicans” resisting Trump and his policies from inside the administration. . . .

Read the whole story of how Coates was identified by a trail of clues, including her distinctive writing style. “Piss poor OpSec,” basically. Anyone familiar with the use of computer analysis knows that, if you are writing thousands upon thousands of words under a pseudonym, and you are also a published writer under your own byline, your mask of anonymity will eventually be penetrated. People who write for a living develop habits, and it turns out that using a pseudonym was one of Coates’s habits — she had written for Red State as “Academic Elephant.” As Sperry points out, former Red State editor Erick Erickson was, like Coates, a supporter of the Ted Cruz campaign, and there are many other dots like that in the pattern that identifies Coates as the “Resistance” saboteur who was embedded in the National Security Council.

Let me quote Elbert Hubbard here:

If you work for a man, in heaven’s name work for him, speak well of him, and stand by the institution he represents. Remember, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. If you must growl, condemn, and eternally find fault — resign your position, and when you are outside, damn to your heart’s content — but as long as you are part of the institution, do not condemn it.

It is dishonorable to be two-faced toward your employer, to smile at your boss and then badmouth him behind his back, to collect a paycheck and then constantly demean your employer to others. This kind of gossipy, backstabbing behavior destroys the spirit of teamwork, and if you have ever been in a workplace when this vicious spirit takes hold, you know how damaging it can be to the morale necessary to successful organizations. Having witnessed such situations more than once in my career, I deplore the bitchy gossips and childish tattletales who do this stuff. It is disloyal and dishonorable, and if you ever encounter someone in your workplace acting this way, you need to shut them down.

Of course, everybody has their share of grievances to grumble about in any job, but slanderous backstabbing, such as Victoria Coates is accused of doing, ought never to be tolerated in the workplace. I have myself had to counsel people against such behavior, and let me give you a hint: If some gossip comes to you badmouthing another person, what do you think the gossip is going to say about you behind your back?

The habit of gossip is always a mark of untrustworthy character. Gossip is un-Christian, repeatedly condemned as sinful in the Bible.

Politics is a team sport, and success requires everyone on the team to be committed to victory. Sorry, Ms. Coates, you got cut from the team.

Enjoy your exile in Saudi Arabia. Bon voyage!

UPDATE: Linked by Vox Day — thanks!




 

Category: Donald Trump

Comments

One Response to “‘It’s Her’: Cruz Ally Victoria Coates Identified as ‘Anonymous’ Author”

  1. Habits to have: Habits to avoid. - Dark Brightness
    April 15th, 2020 @ 7:49 pm

    […] It is dishonorable to be two-faced toward your employer, to smile at your boss and then badmouth him behind his back, to collect a paycheck and then constantly demean your employer to others. This kind of gossipy, backstabbing behavior destroys the spirit of teamwork, and if you have ever been in a workplace when this vicious spirit takes hold, you know how damaging it can be to the morale necessary to successful organizations. Having witnessed such situations more than once in my career, I deplore the bitchy gossips and childish tattletales who do this stuff. It is disloyal and dishonorable, and if you ever encounter someone in your workplace acting this way, you need to shut them down. […]