As every room in the White House echoes with the sound of cocks crowing, I am going to subcontract the job of guessing who the Anonymous Op-Ed writer is to my wife, Margaret Doris—journalist, contributor here at the shebeen, and someone wiser than I in the ways of such matters. She's been sure almost since the piece was published in The New York Times.

She points out that there is something unmistakably feminine in the tone, that it is written in the kind of English practiced in the realms of advertising and public relations, and that the ensuing guessing game has knocked both Bob Woodward's book and Brett Kavanaugh's nomination hearings off the top of the news, regardless of what it may be doing the the president*'s evaporating sanity. If, as I speculated on Wednesday, this is a vehicle on which you can ride away from the garbage fire that is this administration*, but you still want to hold onto your conservative Republican street cred, this is exactly the kind of thing you'd concoct.

She thinks it's Kellyanne Conway.

And now, so do I, and not just because we've had this prolonged pas de deus between Conway and her husband, George, who keeps heckling El Caudillo Del Mar-a-Lago on the electric Twitter machine. (George Conway retweeted the op-ed on Thursday, which would be perfect cover.) She's crafty enough to do it. She's been well-versed in the ways of slipping in the shiv since her days as Kellyanne Fitzpatrick during the Clinton years.

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI Getty Images

And here, as far as I can tell, are the only remarks she's made on the subject of the author since the story broke. From Fox News:

I'm not sure it matters. There are op-eds like that in "The New York Times" every day. It's just a different byline or I guess a non-byline here. I just have to correct the record. It's not clear to us in any way that it somebody in the White House. And they are saying senior administration official, that could be many people.

There are I think thousands of political appointees, hundreds of folks who would qualify under that title alone. But to your point, presidents aren't judged by the noise or even the silence that is occurring at any one moment or any one week, but the usual critics and naysayers. They are judged by the metrics. And when I hear people on cable news, even today in your montage, I confess, I hadn't seen any of it before now. They say words like historic, unprecedented and stunning. That's exactly the way we describe the economy. It's exactly the way we describe the way he's chopped on all the uber burdensome (inaudible) of an unnecessary regulation.

This is a historically and unprecedented economic boom time and the Democrats would take that away. And he knows that because you saw the president today respond the way many of us who have the privilege of working in the White House see him respond all the time, not fuming, not infuriated, not isolated.

He took it right to what was already a planned event with the sheriffs, who are lined up there to thank this president for being pro-law enforcement, to making sure they have the resources and respect they deserve, and he took it out of his pocket and he read his statement and he pushed back on this op-ed.

Read the whole interview. Conway goes on at length about how the identity of the author "doesn't really matter," And hardbitten news anchor Laura Ingraham never asks her if that author happens to be her. Anyway, Kellyanne, this is where my family is laying down its marker.

Of course, it could be George...

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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