Put yer name on it

It was one of the first things I learned in first grade.

Always put your name on your paper.

That way you get credit for your good work … and have to take responsibility for what you might not be so proud of.

Looks like somebody in the White House missed that day of school.

I read with some degree of interest the op-ed published in the New York Times last week. The writer painted a rather interesting picture of his workplace and colleagues – how they are eager little worker bees when the project assigned is to their liking, but act like so many skunks in the chicken house when they take exception to the matters at hand, all in the name of higher moralities and the greater good, we should rest assured. Like I say it was an interesting piece, full of tantalizing tidbits and bon mots, but regrettably missing the single most telling and significant detail. The writer’s name.

Y’know, even finding myself marginally on the same page as Donald Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders when they’re in all-caps rant mode is somewhat of a sphincter-tightening realization, but when they call the faceless, nameless commentator “gutless,” well, they pretty much nail it.

The Klan, the Inquisition and internet trolls all hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Heroes they ain’t.

Neither is the Times’ ghostly expositor. There wasn’t much in that piece that hadn’t been spelled out by Omorosa, Michael Wolfe, Bob Woodward and a dozen newsrooms-worth of bylined reporters – complete with comments from identified senior White House sources. What it lacked in surprises it made up for in self-justification.

But the op-ed pages shouldn’t be mistaken for a confessional with a seal of secrecy to protect the sinner. If there is a comparison to be made, it’s to a witness stand, a place to offer testimony in the open court of public opinion; on the record and open to be freely questioned, challenged and rebutted. And the credibility of the witness is often inseparable from personal credentials and character.

We don’t know this writer’s identity, hence are blind to his or her credentials or character.

Yet, we are called upon to trust that this unnamed individual and other unidentified members of this self-described resistance are thwarting the president at every turn, where such a thwart is in the best interests of the country.

Best interests according to whom? We don’t know.

Now I’ll make no secret of my belief that putting the kibosh on most of this president’s antics would be a good, decent and righteous thing and ought to be done at the earliest possible instance – done by identifiable individuals in the full public view.

Anonymous, erstwhile courtiers sneaking about in the shadows reek of tin pot third-world kleptocractic coup mongering – that’s not the way we ought to be doing things in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Like it or not The Orange One was duly elected, just like Pierce, Harding, Buchannan and Honest Abe. If the job he’s doing and the manner in which he’s doing it isn’t to our liking, we still have the right to stand up and say so – and the obligation to stand by what we say. If those arguments prove persuasive it is the job of the Congress and the courts to reset the course. With roll call votes and with arguments in open court.

Checks and balances – that’s the way the Constitution works.

That’s how democracy works, how the republic is preserved. By people who sign their work, take responsibility for their actions; who stand up – or take a knee – for what they believe in.

That’s what Mrs. Baker taught me during the first week of school.

Too bad the New York Times editorial board wasn’t in that class.