Tagged: John Bolton
America Descending / World Politics
by Daren Jonescu · Published May 6, 2019
The "Told you so!" Watch: Trump goes neocon
Donald Trump, who was going to drain the GOP establishment swamp and restore American foreign policy to its proper national-interest-cum-myopia basis, has now surrounded himself almost entirely with GOP establishment hacks and Fox News expert analysts (i.e., media establishment hacks). One of the funnier instances of this was his appointment of American Enterprise Institute pencil-pusher John Bolton — who had spent the previous...
by Daren Jonescu · Published March 6, 2019
The Psychology of the Bootlicker, Part Two (Bolton for the win!)
I will not bother reiterating all the reasons I have previously offered in support of my minority opinion that John Bolton is none of the things his "conservative" admirers claim he is, and is in fact almost the exact opposite of all those things. Nor will I bother reminding you that I called him out as a cowardly sycophantic lifelong bureaucrat who would...
America Descending / What is The Establishment?
by Daren Jonescu · Published January 12, 2019
Weekend Reflections: Shutdown, Breakdown, Meltdown
It's a wall! It's a barrier! It's — Super-Optics! Meanwhile, a small fraction of the United States Federal Government is officially "shut down" — which would be fantabulous, if it actually meant that the billions of tax dollars confiscated from the American people and their great-great-grandchildren to pay the salaries of huge numbers of non-essential and essentially ineffective government workers were being saved...
by Daren Jonescu · Published December 22, 2018
It's Worm Time! (Told Ya So)
When Donald Trump plunked his net into the Fox News mire for the umpteenth time and hauled up John Bolton, so many self-proclaimed conservatives were over the moon with optimism. "Now," they gushed, "the administration's foreign policy will really get coherent and tough. Bolton is a straight-talking genius, a real man's man." I took flak from many such "conservatives" when I pointed out,...
Boys Will Be Boys in the White House
CNN is reporting breathlessly that an argument — yes, believe it or not, a real shouting match — broke out in the West Wing of the White House Thursday. A heated argument in the West Wing between chief of staff John Kelly and national security adviser John Bolton over a recent surge in border crossings turned into a shouting match Thursday, two sources...
What is The Establishment? / World Politics
by Daren Jonescu · Published July 3, 2018
Bolton Kneels Before The Emperor(s)
Even many conservative Trump skeptics continue to buy into the standard, long-running narrative that National Security Advisor John Bolton, who played cheerleader for Trump until he finally won that plum administration job he had clearly been angling for (just like seemingly every other Fox News commentator), is some kind of rough-and-tumble, straight-talking military throwback. In truth, moustachioed affectations aside, Bolton is just another...
by Daren Jonescu · Published March 24, 2018
David French on John Bolton
David French, who writes for National Review and was backed as a presidential candidate by Bill Kristol of the American Enterprise Institute, says John Bolton is not "extreme" because after all, he is affiliated with NR and AEI. Bolton is not — as some in the media would have you believe — a mere flame-throwing Fox News "talking head." He's a former U.S....
Bolton and Trump: Together at Last
I have nothing left to say about John Bolton that will do my blood pressure any good. He is Trump with a brain and an image-conscious "crusty ol' veteran" moustache. He is an armchair quarterback in a game played with other people's sons and husbands. He is — sorry to be so blunt and cruel — a Fox News expert commentator. Last September,...
by Daren Jonescu · Published September 5, 2017
John Bolton's WWIII Dreaming
I've written recently about how far past its expiry date John Bolton's warmongering crusader shtick is smelling these days. Well, apparently intending to squeeze every last drop of attention from the Trump administration's flirtations with Bush era militarism, Bolton is continuing his siege of Fox News, first expressing disappointment that Trump's Afghanistan speech wasn't tough enough — on China — and now pleading...
Ideas and Reflections / World Politics
by Daren Jonescu · Published August 11, 2017
Tired of John Bolton Yet?
Yes. John Bolton, like a lot of his neoconservative allies, is a very smart and well-spoken man who never met a war he didn't like — unless someone was asking him to fight it. So naturally he is on Fox News these days drooling with excitement over the possibility of a preemptive strike on North Korea. .@AmbJohnBolton: Every American citizen, has to ask...