Friday, March 23, 2018

The Stache is back

John Bolton, come on down:
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that former United Nations Amb. John Bolton will replace Gen. H.R. McMaster as his national security adviser effective April 9 -- the latest in a growing list of White House staff shakeups over the past year.

“I am pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor. I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend. There will be an official contact handover on 4/9,” Trump tweeted.
Bolton is hawkish and his mustache could be a prototype for Trump's border wall, so he's easily caricatured -- as I just demonstrated. He's spent a lot of his post-U.N. career as a purveyor of hot takes. He horrifies my libertarian-minded friends. He'll certainly be more of a hardliner than McMaster, a cautious man who was known to throw cold water on certain ideas emanating from the White House.

Is he a good choice? On balance, I don't think so, but he does represent a worldview that is well within the mainstream of American foreign policy. Pundits, even amateur ones, are supposed to be purveyors of certitude, but I honestly don't know the best approach any more. The previous two presidential administrations both screwed the pooch, but in different ways. I'm inclined to observe for now.

2 comments:

3john2 said...

Screw the pooch enough times and it starts growling at everything.

Gino said...

from what i've recently heard, McMaster was the most recent suspected leaker (the congratulation call to Putin). Kelly was furious as was Trump, and it could have been only one of six who could have been the leaker, and they narrowed it down.