John Bolton

In Trump-era fashion, he now becomes the latest figure about which we must have a hot take.

As I said the other day, I think it would be enlightening for our nation to have him on the stand in the Senate. I think so even more now that some content from his book manuscript is becoming public knowledge due to leaks by somebody or other.

And now, to Twitter Trumpists, he's a RINO and a traitor. Federalist editor Sean Davis says that Bolton was "fired . . for trying to start new wars."  Jim Hoft, Dan Bongino and Jack Posobiec have had a busy morning.

The Pavlovian instantaneousness with which this bunch has staked out its position is unsurprising. They're keen to shepherd impeachment through to a Senate acquittal with as few complications as possible. The common theme to pretty much all of today's attempts to dismiss Bolton's impact is a president's prerogative in hiring and firing diplomatic, military and intelligence-gathering personnel as needed to support his policy vision. The problem is that, at least in the case of Ukraine, this business of policy vision is exactly what's being looked at. There's some pretty strong evidence out there that Donald Trump didn't much care about that particular nation, beyond its usefulness in gaining political advantage.

The Trumpist take is specious at best. If anybody has exhibited consistency over the years and shown that his career's been driven by a core set of principles, it's Bolton. John Podhoretz stated it well in a Commentary piece from last September:

John Bolton has never trimmed his sails in pursuit of power or authority. He is who he is and always has been. He believes in the efficacy of American power and the need to project it to make America safer and improve its position in the world. And he believes that we should confront antagonists rather than seek to find common ground with them.

He was this person the day before Donald Trump appointed him national security adviser, and he remained that person throughout his tenure. He argued internally for exactly the policies and ideas he had advocated before he was installed in the West Wing.

Love his views or hate his views, isn’t this what we want from our public servants—what might be called “intellectual transparency?” Those who disagree with Bolton’s worldview are right to celebrate his departure, but they only know they are right because Bolton is not a prevaricator or a careerist. I have had my differences with him in the past. In 2007, he spoke at a COMMENTARY dinner at which he went through the possibilities of salutary American military action in the Middle East without bothering to confront the argument that the mess in Iraq pretty much precluded any further action along the lines he was laying out.

That said, consider the difference between Bolton’s White House tenure and that of, say, Samantha Power—a person who rose to prominence arguing heatedly and with the zeal of an Old Testament prophet that failure to stop genocides was the moral stain of our age and who then sat there like a tower of Jell-O in the Obama White House as a genocide went on in Syria.

From what we can tell, Bolton never stopped pushing his positions on American strength and not coddling our enemies, on the reasonable assumption that this was what he was there for. Or perhaps because, as a man of integrity, he could do no other. At a time when people are twisting themselves into ideological pretzels to keep their jobs and stay in good with the boss, John Bolton kept his honor and his integrity. And in the end, what else does a public intellectual have but those?

The guy ran his high school's Students for Goldwater group in 1964.

At Yale Law School, his fealty to conservative principles was palpable according to a classmate:

 In his memoir, Justice Clarence Thomas credits Bolton with pushing him to question his liberal beliefs. "John was known as a conservative while I still thought of myself as being far left of center (when I wasn't just being cynical)," Thomas writes. He explains how Bolton challenged him. During one argument, Bolton said, "Clarence, as a member of a group that has been treated shabbily by the majority in this country, why would you want to give the government more power over your personal life?" Though it didn't instantly make Thomas a conservative, the justice writes, "John's question reverberated in my mind for a long time to come."

After some law-firm work, he joined the Reagan administration and over the next several years served in the departments of State and Justice, as well as at USAID. His foreign policy approach became well known. He understood the folly of appeasing rogue regimes like those in North Korea and Iran. He viewed the United Nations as basically worthless, which didn't help him at his acrimonious Senate confirmation hearings when President George W. Bush nominated him to be UN ambassador. Bush felt strongly enough about sending Bolton to the UN that he made a recess appointment when the Senate failed to confirm him.

Trump was keen on finding a place for Bolton in his administration, too. When he did, Bolton went right to work, reshaping the National Security Council, requesting the Pentagon to fashion a plan for striking Iran. He quite vocally castigated the International Criminal Court.

His alarm at what was happening regarding Ukraine - Guliani's shadow policy team, the Trump-Zelensky phone call - was of a piece with his positions through the years. In John Bolton's worldview, you strengthen alliances and thwart adversaries' designs.

The idea that he's just out to peddle his new book doesn't wash. He sincerely feels strongly about this. That said, he probably would tread very carefully under oath, not wanting to be the agent for bringing about the end of the administration that had zapped Suleimani.

An honest examination of his life, career and positions doesn't leave room for either of the characterizations that Trump-world is peddling: that he gets a gratuitous kick out of war, or that he's just another opportunistic Beltway bureaucrat hustling his own brand. He's a person who has thought hard and deeply about what would really keep America secure, and what would most effectively support the flourishing of freedom in the world.

Getting all worked up about the prospect of Bolton testifying at the Senate trial indicates a desire to gloss over what is plain even before we hear from Bolton: that Trump used his office in impeachable ways.

Harping on this the-president-has-the-right-to-hire-and-fire-executive-branch-personnel argument is a tacit acknowledgement that so many administration figures have left because they knew Trump's course, such as it is, was reckless. That's the essence of the matter that Trumpists don't want anyone contemplating for very long.