As at least one Kossack has diaried, John Bolton was on The Daily Show last night. Bolton and Jon Stewart had a civil debate that really placed a bright line on the different views conservatives and progressives—which I think Stewart can safely be called—have about this particular president and presidential powers in general.
On several occasions, Bolton declared that the cause of the problems Jon Stewart was raising—Plamegate, U.S. attorney purge, etc.—was not this current administration’s behavior, but the fabled "bureaucracy." The bureaucracy, you see, is failing to act like well-behaved school children and do exactly what they are told by their ultimate head honcho, and that is a threat to "Democratic theory."
Well, I only have an undergraduate degree in political science, but I have to suggest that perhaps Mr. Bolton just doesn’t quite understand Democratic theory, at least the way the average American does...
Bolton cited as an example the "leaks" from bureaucrats—presumably referring to the leaks about warrantless wiretapping, U.S. black sites in foreign countries where alleged terrorists are tortured, etc.—to support the idea that the bureaucracy has been working to undermine the president and his policies and that this represented a serious threat to Democratic theory.
So, in Bolton’s mind, if you are a government employee, you should consider yourself nothing more than a servant to the president who should blindly do what you are told, regardless of whether it’s immoral, unethical, or, I would presume, illegal.
Warrantless wiretapping: Peeshaw! Go about your business, you lowly peasant/bureaucrat, and leave concerns about whether the law is being broken to the intellectual giants who reside on the shoulders of our elected president like vultures waiting for the squirrel that just got plastered by a Chevy Tahoe to stop flopping around and die already.
Blow the whistle on attempts to alter scientifically accurate reports on global warming: Please, Mr. Highly Respected Scientific Authority on one of the greatest threats to mankind ever, dutifully do what you are told and return to your desk to conduct your little rigorous scientific research.
Being fired from your position as U.S. Attorney in the midst of an important corruption investigation of a—gasp!—member of your king/president’s own political party and then having the temerity to complain about it, even call it ‘politically motivated’? How dare you, sir! You serve at the president’s pleasure. He IS the law, and you are but a well-schooled lawyer charged only with defending the law as the President sees it. I can’t believe I have to explain this.
So, as many have said before, Bolton and his ilk believe the President—well, at least a Republican president—is, in effect, the king. Bureaucrats are not to think, and they are certainly not to do anything that would bring to public light administration behavior that might suggest wrongdoing of any sort. Because any wrongdoing is, in effect, impossible when you are king.