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Anonymous White House op-ed sparks Twitter jokes, parodies

Who's the senior administration official who wrote the New York Times column? Was it a Jedi? Voldemort? That kid who mowed the White House lawn?

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper

There's no consensus on the anonymous author of the controversial New York Times op-ed published Wednesday, but it's still a topic of online conversation.

The article, "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration," was criticized by President Donald Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other political figures. 

In it, the author, identified as "a senior official in the Trump administration," describes an internal "quiet resistance" to Trump and assures Americans that "there are adults in the room" at the White House.

Some Twitter users digitally edited an image of the column to give it a tweaked headline, often making the article appear to come from Star Wars, Star Trek or other fictional characters.

And there were plenty of other jokes about who the author might be, as well as his or her motives.

Some meme-makers picked up on the photo of Frank Giaccio, age 11, who requested and was allowed to mow the White House lawn in 2017, and has since become a favorite meme photo.

And let's give the last word to Margaret Sullivan, the former public editor of The New York Times.