If it was Pence, I'll eat my hat. That article is making so many leaps and long reaches it could be an Olympic gymnast.

Oh yes...hence the metric tonne of caveats. Funny though; I just finished watching South Park S20 with the spoof of Trump and trolling. The notion of "emoji-analysis" comes up and the episodes seem prescient.

Wouldn't Pence prefer having one of his trusted writers craft it? Let a professional make a first draft, Pence makes comments, writer discusses options and redrafts, etc. Then Pence could 'honestly' declare that he did not write it personally, or to be further removed politically and as further obfuscation, have his underlings deny that he wrote it, as was the case. Unless you can find any quote direct from Pence about this? Pence's writer would also have better contact with the New York Times to have it published anonymously.

Occam's Razor is weeping right now.

I'm not crying, the simplest solution is you're crying!

Did you know that all politicians hire speech writers? Pence has several.

Yes, of course I do. But it makes no sense to use your speech writers and go through rounds of edits to have plausible deniability/obfuscate that its you.... and then make sure that giveaways like 'lodestar' are in the text. To protect a job that doesn't need protecting.

Far simpler for someone else who does need to protect themselves throwing in a couple -isms here and there as red herrings.

I'm partial to the idea its Jon Huntsman. U.S. ambassador to Russia might actually be a position were you could argue the public good of holding back trump might be better then not denouncing trump full force.

All the Theories on Who Wrote the Anonymous Anti-Trump Op-ed

I nominate Nikki Haley. She has done many things that counter Trump policy (especially anti-Russian rhetoric) and she survives.

I'm glad no one took the low road and said it was Barron Trump. Manifesto to the press, the rest of the time devoted to school and home alone style antics foiling the adults plans.

Michelle Obama wrote it and Melania copied it and sent it in.

Kellyanne Conway has the skills. cunning, media connections, and moral flexibility to pull this off. She doesn't actually care anything about Trump, she used to work for Ted Cruz. Misdirecting blame toward Pence would just be fun, I don't care who you are.