The teacher is going to be upset with how long it’s taking me to finish this book report. Normally, I can make it through a book this length in a day or two. I’m not a quarter of the way yet (according to my Kindle). I’ve made it into Chapter 7 (Mattis has just resigned/been fired). I read several pages, get pissed off and have to walk away. Bolton is entirely too smug and pleased with himself for me to be able to stomach for long stretches.
Here are some more impressions as I get deeper into the text.
The section where Bolton describes tRump’s use of fabricated numbers and a clear lack of any understanding of how NATO is funded in order to make himself into an international fool is highly convoluted (even more than this sentence). Across several pages, Bolton talks about how flummoxed they all are by tRump’s dimbulbitude and unwillingness to prepare. Rather than saying tRump pulled imaginary numbers out of his ass and made false equivalences between apples and cement blocks, Bolton rambles along saying he didn’t know where tRump got the numbers and wasn’t accurate in describing the funding discrepancies.
tRump didn’t know Britain was a nuclear power.
Bolton appears committed to the republican party line that there was no collusion between the tRump campaign and Russia. He describes tRump’s “would vs. wouldn’t” moment in Helsinki as a misstatement rather than an admission. I wonder if he’s going to tell us how much he loves Bill Barr’s synopsis of the Mueller Report. Also, Putin played tRump like a concert trumpeter coaxing notes out of a broken kazoo (I took some liberties to summarize what Bolton actually said).
We learn that according to tRump, Secretary Mattis is a liberal democrat.
Bolton continues to display his chickenhawk credentials with a bold display of his besmirched tail feathers. tRump has tertiary ADD and poor John can’t manipulate him as well as Putin. Color me surprised. If tRump is so easily manipulable by the Putins and Kims of the world, why did the adults in the room do such a shitty job of it themselves? Bolton regrets his failures to make tRump into a bloodthirsty warmongering Bolton clone, while simultaneously calling him easy to lead and hard to manage.
At times Bolton is a dedicated tRumpologist, excusing tRump’s blunders as minor Fox pas. Sometimes he’s amused at tRump’s childish antics and vindictive nature. On rare occasions he’s taken aback (the Syria withdrawal fiasco). What hasn’t come through so far is any sense of outrage.
Bolton cackles like a proud hen with a hopelessly cracked egg, after orchestrating the US withdrawal from the INF treaty. I find it unseemly when someone is so proud of working to remove constraints on the use of weapons of mass destruction.
Bolton on Paris: “tRump also unsigned the Paris agreement on climate change, a move I supported. That deal had all of the real-world impact on climate change of telling your prayer beads and lighting candles in church (which someone will try to forbid soon because of the carbon footprint of all those burning candles.”
It’s clear that Bolton saw Mattis as an obstacle to be outmaneuvered and cast aside. Reading between the lines, Mattis was trying to keep tRump (and Bolton) from acting precipitously. In the book, Bolton has spent significant effort belittling Mattis and trying to paint him as a timid bureaucrat. The only way the chickenhawk can undercut the General is by sniping from a distance.
Bolton on tRump’s Syria strategy: “These were presidential outbursts, off-the-cuff comments, knee-jerk reactions, not a coherent, straight-line strategy, but bits and pieces we needed to thread our way through to get a satisfactory outcome.”
It appears to me that Bolton has revealed information that would tend to be classified in nature. Repeating conversations between tRump and foreign leaders that aren’t violations of US law (eg Ukraine) would normally be classified. I think Bolton is in a lot of trouble. Couldn’t happen to a nicer jingoist.
Up the resistance!
Memaliciousness
Cut and Paste Department. This is the regularly scheduled plea for readers. I’ve still only had to make two memes. You have it within your power to make me work. If you spread the word about Evening Shade and your spreadee announces themselves in the comments, you will become eligible to receive your very, very special noprize of a meme of your very own. All you have to do is jump up and get out there and start carnival barking, cajoling, proselytizing (or pimping, if you are of an irreligious bent). You could even pester and push. Procrastination is not an option — it’s a way of life.
Mokurai jumped in with an emergency GNR this morning: Good News Wednesday: What do We Want from Joe Biden?