Enough with the backhanded compliments and hindsight, justified as they may be.
I’m hoping that the DOJ’s overt action will be enough to push Bolton into coming out blazing with all the guns of his considerable intellect. He’s exactly the kind of Republican we need for the resistance. Former statesmen of the world unite!
Bolton’s personality is not a sanguine one. He’s not going to be at all calm about the Regime’s home invasion.
Mike, I have long appreciated your analyses of where we are and how we got here and could not agree more with the breadth of those many analyses. There was and continues to be an abject failure by so many who should know better to have stood up while the election was supposedly in doubt and challenged the Trump narrative. That said, I believed then and continue to hold to the belief that speaking truth to power before the election would have made no difference in its outcome. Whether it was the surgical application of Musk’s money, fraud at the ballot box or simply a failure of Harris and the Democratic Party to both get out its message or understand the extent to which the MAGA movement and its benefactors had mastered social media and its ability to control the narrative, Trump was going to be elected last November. Once in office, the “where we are today” story was already written and the ability to stop its metastasis simply a fever dream. Stopping the spread of authoritative rule…holding Trump and his acolytes accountable… requires a branch of government willing and able to stand up, push back and effectively constrain. That is simply not happening and will not be happening anytime soon. The House and Senate abdicate their constitutional obligations. The DoJ, rather than standing for constitutional constraint, flaunt without embarrassment any attempt by anyone, in government and outside government to object…to expose and to cry out “J’accuse” as is the case with Mr. Bolton. Instead of the rule of law we have the rule of retribution, supported by a federal agencies (FBI, DEA, etc.) which joyfully join in the feeding fest rather than standing against the abuse. The Courts have putatively stood as a bulwark against the abuse only to be slapped down by a Supreme Court bench which has mastered the art of rendering decisions in secret (it’s so-called “Emergency Docket”) that have devastating effect on the country and its future without feeling any obligation (or perhaps better characterized as courage) to explain why they are so willing to join in a feeding frenzy which, with each passing day, makes the Court’s role superfluous. Perhaps we can count on the military to hold fast to our traditions and stand by the Constitution? Ah…no.
I wish I could see a way out of this. For my sake and the sake of my children and grandchildren I wish it were otherwise. I understand that as a country we have gone through similar periods of division and violence beginning with the fight between Federalists and Republicans in Jefferson’s time that nearly brought the government down and the violence of and the lead up to the Civil War. In both instances the divisions seemed insurmountable and, in the case of the Civil War, nearly was. Perhaps what we are seeing today is just another spasm of political violence that has shaken the country before. I would differ the Heather Richardson on that.
Regrettably I think not. There is an inevitability to all this that makes it hard to not think otherwise. Is resistance futile (as the Borg would say). It is certainly necessary and must continue but is it enough.
Mike, you have given perfect expression to what I see and have been seeing but could not articulate. I agree with you. The volcano has been rumbling and it’s now releasing its early contents.
Scholar Thavolia Glymph may have coined the phrase, 'the contested meaning of domestic sanctuary' and it came to mind after this morning's event. It's the FBI's job to uphold the law and now it's Bolton's job to teach them how. He just might be the guy for the job.
While it is of course correct that raiding John Bolton's home over his criticism of the current administration crosses yet more lines, I find it exceptionally difficult to have any sympathy for the man himself given that the policies he pushed in years past, such as the invasion of Iraq built on lies about Saddam Hussein's complicity in the September 11, 2001 attacks and his supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction, created the conditions in which a man like Donald Trump could ascend to the Presidency. (Does anyone else remember him rhetorically eviscerating Jeb Bush on the debate stage when Gov. Bush claimed that "my brother kept us safe" and Trump retorted by noting that the Twin Towers fell during said brother's Presidency?)
Bolton isn't an honourable statesman with a sterling history of public service. Bolton is complicit in this regime's offences not just from his recent stance of "neutrality" (he served in the first Trump administration, after all) but also due to having created the conditions in which someone like Trump could be a serious candidate at all. He supported the leopard; now his face is being eaten.
This isn't about defending Bolton personally or validating his foreign policy record. This is about defending the constitutional framework that protects all of us from regimes that treat political disagreement as criminal activity. If we only protect constitutional rights for figures whose past we approve of, we've already surrendered to the tribal logic that animates Trump's revenge machine. Constitutional government cannot survive the precedent that federal law enforcement can target citizens based on their ideological sins rather than actual crimes.
I'm well aware of that. This is not the justice John Bolton deserves. (The justice he deserves, in my opinion, is to be in chains at The Hague, alongside all the other members of the rogues' gallery littering modern geopolitics.) As a principled matter you are completely correct. This raid, with this rationale, was a man being placed on the wrong side of conservatism, as part of the group the law binds but does not protect. That he was happy to be on the other side of that dynamic for so long does not change that nobody deserves to be on the side he is now on.
In this one matter, Bolton must be vindicated. Robert Bolt's Devil must receive benefit of law--but we must also not forget that he is still the Devil, and that he helped create the conditions in which this state of affairs became a reality. We cannot normalise what the current administration is doing but we also cannot normalise those, such as Bolton, who created the conditions in which the current administration was possible.
Enough with the backhanded compliments and hindsight, justified as they may be.
I’m hoping that the DOJ’s overt action will be enough to push Bolton into coming out blazing with all the guns of his considerable intellect. He’s exactly the kind of Republican we need for the resistance. Former statesmen of the world unite!
Bolton’s personality is not a sanguine one. He’s not going to be at all calm about the Regime’s home invasion.
Mike, I have long appreciated your analyses of where we are and how we got here and could not agree more with the breadth of those many analyses. There was and continues to be an abject failure by so many who should know better to have stood up while the election was supposedly in doubt and challenged the Trump narrative. That said, I believed then and continue to hold to the belief that speaking truth to power before the election would have made no difference in its outcome. Whether it was the surgical application of Musk’s money, fraud at the ballot box or simply a failure of Harris and the Democratic Party to both get out its message or understand the extent to which the MAGA movement and its benefactors had mastered social media and its ability to control the narrative, Trump was going to be elected last November. Once in office, the “where we are today” story was already written and the ability to stop its metastasis simply a fever dream. Stopping the spread of authoritative rule…holding Trump and his acolytes accountable… requires a branch of government willing and able to stand up, push back and effectively constrain. That is simply not happening and will not be happening anytime soon. The House and Senate abdicate their constitutional obligations. The DoJ, rather than standing for constitutional constraint, flaunt without embarrassment any attempt by anyone, in government and outside government to object…to expose and to cry out “J’accuse” as is the case with Mr. Bolton. Instead of the rule of law we have the rule of retribution, supported by a federal agencies (FBI, DEA, etc.) which joyfully join in the feeding fest rather than standing against the abuse. The Courts have putatively stood as a bulwark against the abuse only to be slapped down by a Supreme Court bench which has mastered the art of rendering decisions in secret (it’s so-called “Emergency Docket”) that have devastating effect on the country and its future without feeling any obligation (or perhaps better characterized as courage) to explain why they are so willing to join in a feeding frenzy which, with each passing day, makes the Court’s role superfluous. Perhaps we can count on the military to hold fast to our traditions and stand by the Constitution? Ah…no.
I wish I could see a way out of this. For my sake and the sake of my children and grandchildren I wish it were otherwise. I understand that as a country we have gone through similar periods of division and violence beginning with the fight between Federalists and Republicans in Jefferson’s time that nearly brought the government down and the violence of and the lead up to the Civil War. In both instances the divisions seemed insurmountable and, in the case of the Civil War, nearly was. Perhaps what we are seeing today is just another spasm of political violence that has shaken the country before. I would differ the Heather Richardson on that.
Regrettably I think not. There is an inevitability to all this that makes it hard to not think otherwise. Is resistance futile (as the Borg would say). It is certainly necessary and must continue but is it enough.
Mike, you have given perfect expression to what I see and have been seeing but could not articulate. I agree with you. The volcano has been rumbling and it’s now releasing its early contents.
Scholar Thavolia Glymph may have coined the phrase, 'the contested meaning of domestic sanctuary' and it came to mind after this morning's event. It's the FBI's job to uphold the law and now it's Bolton's job to teach them how. He just might be the guy for the job.
Sad, and well stated.
Don't be surprised if Bolton ends up running the FBI. This is going to be a throwdown.
While it is of course correct that raiding John Bolton's home over his criticism of the current administration crosses yet more lines, I find it exceptionally difficult to have any sympathy for the man himself given that the policies he pushed in years past, such as the invasion of Iraq built on lies about Saddam Hussein's complicity in the September 11, 2001 attacks and his supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction, created the conditions in which a man like Donald Trump could ascend to the Presidency. (Does anyone else remember him rhetorically eviscerating Jeb Bush on the debate stage when Gov. Bush claimed that "my brother kept us safe" and Trump retorted by noting that the Twin Towers fell during said brother's Presidency?)
Bolton isn't an honourable statesman with a sterling history of public service. Bolton is complicit in this regime's offences not just from his recent stance of "neutrality" (he served in the first Trump administration, after all) but also due to having created the conditions in which someone like Trump could be a serious candidate at all. He supported the leopard; now his face is being eaten.
This isn't about defending Bolton personally or validating his foreign policy record. This is about defending the constitutional framework that protects all of us from regimes that treat political disagreement as criminal activity. If we only protect constitutional rights for figures whose past we approve of, we've already surrendered to the tribal logic that animates Trump's revenge machine. Constitutional government cannot survive the precedent that federal law enforcement can target citizens based on their ideological sins rather than actual crimes.
I'm well aware of that. This is not the justice John Bolton deserves. (The justice he deserves, in my opinion, is to be in chains at The Hague, alongside all the other members of the rogues' gallery littering modern geopolitics.) As a principled matter you are completely correct. This raid, with this rationale, was a man being placed on the wrong side of conservatism, as part of the group the law binds but does not protect. That he was happy to be on the other side of that dynamic for so long does not change that nobody deserves to be on the side he is now on.
In this one matter, Bolton must be vindicated. Robert Bolt's Devil must receive benefit of law--but we must also not forget that he is still the Devil, and that he helped create the conditions in which this state of affairs became a reality. We cannot normalise what the current administration is doing but we also cannot normalise those, such as Bolton, who created the conditions in which the current administration was possible.