Posted on 06/19/2020 4:10:24 PM PDT by ek_hornbeck
It's been entertaining to watch liberals backtrack and twist themselves into pretzels over the alleged claims in John Bolton's new book. On the one hand, they don't want to come across as too sympathetic to Bolton, on the other, they want to emphasize that they hate Trump and his supporters much more and so are perfectly content to enlist Bolton's support in their greater cause. Therefore, the standard liberal line seems to be that what Bolton is saying is great, but he's terrible for saying it now rather than during the impeachment hearings.
I haven't seen Bolton's book and have no way of knowing if he's saying what the media claim that he has written, but I'm going to assume for now that he did. Similarly, given the assumption above, it's hard to parse which of Bolton's statements are factual and which he made up out of spite, but I'm going to take some of them at face value. In doing so, it's easy to see that the so-called "bombshells" he tossed are water balloons at worst, and in some cases even had the effect of making people more supportive of Trump.
The articles I'm speaking of are basically carbon copies of one another, so here's a representative example.. Let's go over some of the "bombshells" in no particular order:
1. Trump enlisted China's Help With His Re-election.
OK - how did he do so, exactly? Did he ask Xi to target his opponents? No, he wanted to "help his campaign" by demanding that China purchase more agricultural products from the US and thus act reciprocally in a trade deal. This has been a cornerstone of Trump's trade policy with China from the beginning: he's willing to use any methods at his disposal, from tariffs to diplomacy, to reduce the trade imbalance between the US and China. Both economic nationalists and free trade advocates would probably agree that the status quo where China has barriers to US goods while we have few if any towards China's isn't acceptable. Trump's negotiations, if successful, would have helped US farmers and the US economy as a whole. Allegedly, we're supposed to be outraged by this, just because it might also help him be re-elected?
"2. Trump praised Chinese concentration camps.
While I have no particular love for China's government, China is a sovereign nation that has the right to defend the integrity of its borders against separatists and against terrorist insurgents. Since Muslim minorities are well-known for stirring up trouble wherever they occur, it's hard to muster much sympathy for the Huighurs of China, who have perpetrated acts of terror, or to be outraged over China's heavy-handed efforts to put down a restive minority and to assimilate them into Chinese rather than Islamic culture. Given the behavior of Muslim minorities in Europe, Nigeria, India, and other nations, it's hard to believe that the Huighurs are any better or deserve much better treatment than what they're receiving.
3. Trump Supports Invading Venezuela
Since Bolton wants to invade half of the countries in the world, why exactly would he oppose this? I'm guessing that he probably supported Trump on this and the media reported the claim as though it were one of outrage.
In fact, Maduro and his Marxist government does need to go, and while I'm not convinced that sending US troops into a ground war there is the right way to do it (not least because the net result would be a flood of Venezuelan refugees coming to the US), on Monroe Doctrine grounds we have a lot more justification to intervene there than we do in the Middle East and other far away lands. Venezuela isn't even at the top of the list of problems in our hemisphere - the drug gangs in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras are a far more direct security threat to Americans than anything happening in Afghanistan, and if those governments can't or won't fight the drug gangs, perhaps we should.
4.Trump used off-color language to describe Nimrata Randhawa.
The real story here is the claim that Javanka wanted to convince the President to replace Mike Pence with Nimrata Ranhawa. If true, it does show that Javanka have far too much clout in the Trump White House, and that they are by far the worst influence on the President. On almost every issue, they exert a steady leftward or establishment pull on policy, and it's unfortunate that they've made themselves deputy Secretary of State and Deputy Chief of Staff rolled into one. If the White House were being criticized for their influence, I would be all in favor of it, but that's not what this outrage is about. Instead, the outrage is over the fact that Trump rejected Javanka's advice and didn't think so highly of Nimrata after all.
While VP Pence is far from perfect, Nimrata would be absolutely terrible. She's a cold, back-stabbing opportunist who rode the Tea Party wave into office and then governed like an establishment hack, being wrong on just about every cultural issue from immigration to the status of Confederate flags and monuments. If Trump used off-color language to describe her, it was perfectly justified. I feel precisely the same way about her.
5. Trump thinks Finland is part of Russia, and similar stories
All of these seem like Bolton or others mistaking facetious remarks for serious statements, others may simply be made up.
In summary, if, as Trump's enemies wish, Bolton or anyone else came forward with these claims during the impeachment hearings, they would have rung as hollow as the Russia collusion accusations themselves. Their "bombshells" are all duds, as is usually the case.
Thank you.
...5. Trump thinks Finland is part of Russia, and similar stories
All of these seem like Bolton or others mistaking facetious remarks for serious statements, others may simply be made up....
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Hmmm... does anyone know if Bolton speaks Austrian? ;-)
Not sure, but I did hear that he's visited all but a very few of the 57 states of the USA.
All of Finland used to be part of the Russian Empire, and part of Finland has belonged to Russia since the end of World War II.
Bolton made fun of Obuttnuts when the President mentioned the 57 states, Bolton had to remind him there were 58 states
Good on John
Bolton is a very little man.
Little man with big moustache.
Before Thanksgiving, Costco, Walmart and ????? will have a ton of Bolton’s unsold books piled into bins with a price of 1 $/ book..
Leftover books before Christmas will be sold for 50 cents.
The rest will be donated to libraries, who will sell them for a quarter in their post Christmas used book sale.
Then in, Jan 2021, reelected President Trump will be sworn in, and Bolton will be come as memorable as the other backstabbing losers to President Trump.
Barf alert. This writer uses the childish contraction Javanka, and therefore cant be taken seriously.
. . . and big ego.
Yes, he is quite petit, but he sports a large moustache and a huge chip on his shoulder. Seriously, he is a vengeful, thin-skinned chickenhawk. I love Trump’s counter that he liked to have Bolton in the room when negotiating because he scared the bejeezus out of opponents.
Bolton is a world class super NeoCon who wants to be at war with half the countries of the world and he wants to spy on and manipulate the other half. Bolton simply lost the arguments in the white house and he is mad. Too bad for him.
I agree with your conclusion(s). From what I have heard the book sounds like a butt hurt employee writing a complaint to HR. Ain’t no body got time for that.
People don’t understand that Trump has high expectations of his employees and demands they perform.
I expected a better set of lies from Bolton about Trump. This is some weak sauce he has conjured up.
And you, the high and mighty mature "intellectual" have never in your life used a nickname to belittle someone that you don't like, right? Or, more likely, you only object to "childish contractions" when they're used to ridicule the people that you support or admire. So go and choke on your own "Barf."
Thanks for the summary. The book is a nothing factor, all I care about is whether classified information was disclosed. Hopefully there is a centerfold for the Nevertrumpers pleasure.
Yes, Ive used nicknames before, but there is just something about people who say Javanka that screams of thinking youre so clever.
“Big hat no cattle.”
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