The Hunt for Red October: President Trump is outraged and everyone in Washington is sleuthing to find out who was the anonymous administration official who wrote in The NY Times that Trump’s staff and cabinet are trying to protect the country from its own President. Reporters and White House officials are analyzing style and syntax to see if it matches with anyone they know.

Trump tweeted, “Are the investigative “journalists” of the New York Times going to investigate themselves – who is the anonymous letter writer?”The Times’ own reporters writing about reaction to the essay haven’t been told who wrote it. They’re out there digging like everyone else.

One administration official told The Washington Post — anonymously — that “You can’t rule it down to one person. Everyone is trying, but it’s impossible.”

Another former official said, “It’s like the horror movies when everyone realizes the call is coming from inside the house.”

Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denied it’s them. Also denying; the attorney general,  the director of national intelligence, and the  secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, Treasury and Housing, and Urban Development. They’re all shouting, “I’m not Spartacus!”

CNN’s Brian Stelter interviewed the Times op-ed editor, James Dao, who said  the anonymous official came to them with his essay and only a handful of people at the paper know who it is. Dao told Stelter that there was no special editing to mask the writer’s identity.

Dao told Stelter, “We felt it was a very strong piece written by someone who had something important to say and who’s speaking from a place of their own sense of personal ethics and conscience. That was our main focus.”

The Artful Dodger: Judge Brett Kavanaugh spent a third day yesterday dodging questions about what he really thinks as he moves toward confirmation to the Supreme Court.

Much of the questioning focused on an email that he wrote as a lawyer in George W. Bush’s White House concerning the landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade: “I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so.”

Kavanaugh split hairs on what he regards to be “precedent” as opposed to “settled law.” He said Brown v. Board of Education, which ended school discrimination is “settled” but he did not use that word for abortion.

His opponents believe Kavanaugh is an extreme right-winger in the guise of a gently family man who volunteers at a homeless shelter.

NY Times columnist Paul Krugman writes, “After all, if Kavanaugh is confirmed, we will be trying to navigate a turbulent era in American politics with a Supreme Court in which two seats were effectively stolen. First Republicans refused even to give President Barack Obama’s nominee so much as a hearing; then they will have filled two positions with nominees chosen by a president who lost the popular vote and eked out an Electoral College win only with aid from a hostile foreign power.”

140 Less Characters: Twitter yesterday became the last major social media platform to ban conspiracy nut Alex Jones and his Infowars. He was kicked off Twitter and Periscope.

Jones has pushed the theory that the Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax and some of the families are suing him for emotional distress.

The Roundup: Sixteen people were confirmed dead and 26 missing after a 6.7 magnitude earthquake on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. — Indi’s supreme court has struck down the country’s law banning gay sex, calling it “indefensible.” — Brazil’s far right wing presidential candidate is in the hospital in intensive care after being stabbed in the abdomen during a campaign event. His assailant was arrested.

The Obit Page: Burt Reynolds, the actor with leading-man looks who broke out in the 1972 drama “Deliverance” and later turned out to be a closeted comic, died in Florida at age 82.

His credits include The Longest Yard (1974), Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Semi-Tough (1977), Hooper (1978), The Cannonball Run (1981) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982). He starred in the sitcom Evening Shade from 1990 to1994.

He had a perpetually boyish charm. In 1972 he posed for Cosmopolitanmagazine wearing only a sly grin.

Reynolds could play anything from a tough-guy cop to a goofy trucker running bootleg. He was not a great actor, but as an actor, he was always great fun.

Just Did It: Nike last night debuted its new advertisement featuring Colin Kaepernick during the NFL season opener between the Eagles and the Falcons. Kaepernick, who started the “take a knee” National Anthem protest narrates the ad saying, “If people say your dreams are crazy, if they laugh at what people think you can do, good.” He concludes: “Don’t ask if your dreams are crazy. Ask if they’re crazy enough.”

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