John Bolton – Astute News

July 5, 2020

The Room Where It Didn’t Happen: Inside John Bolton’s Brain

When President Donald Trump belatedly but wisely fired John Bolton as his National Security Adviser in September 2019, I wrote in these columns that Bolton relinquished power with all the grace of a cockroach. Now, as I also predicted, he has published his memoirs turning on his benefactor with all the loyalty and gratitude of a scorpion. There is indeed...

Opinion Comments: 0

July 5, 2020

How the Media Used the Bounty Scandal to Stop the ‘Threat’ of Peace in Afghanistan

This is not a column defending Donald Trump. Across my career, I have said more positive words about the scolex family of intestinal tapeworms than I have said about Donald Trump. (Scolex have been shown to read more.) No, this is a column about context. When The New York Times reports anonymous sources from the intelligence community say Russia paid...

Opinion Comments: 0

July 1, 2020

John Bolton – Traitor to Common Decency

There are few men in modern American history more venal than Former National Security Adviser John Bolton. Calling Bolton a relic of the Cold War in his outlook on foreign policy is a kindness. Bolton is a dangerous and pathetic creature whose entire life is an example of how incomplete men with a talent for violence can rise in a...

Opinion Comments: 0

June 29, 2020

Trump Unloads on Bolton After Bolton Unloads on Trump

John Bolton’s new memoir “The Room Where It Happened,” which came out two days ago in spite of White House attempts to block it, is the standard kiss and tell that senior American politicians and officials tend to write to make money for their retirement. There should be no question but that Bolton has done his best to cast the...

Opinion Comments: 0

June 27, 2020

Bolton’s Memoir Bolts from the Stable

President Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton would have been confident. His indulgent The Room Where it Happened: A White House Memoir pitted him against the administration in a not infrequent battle over material that is published by former officials recounting their giddy days in high office. On June 17, the US government filed a civil suit seeking...

Books Comments: 0

June 26, 2020

Chinagate Is The Craziest Conspiracy Theory Yet

It is totally unbelievable to imagine that Trump purportedly solicited China’s support for his re-election campaign via international economic means and even endorsed the country’s anti-terrorist policies in Xinjiang. Nothing could be further from the truth. *** Former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s book contains many passages that are receiving a lot of attention from the mainstream media, but one...

Opinion Comments: 0

June 25, 2020

Why Bolton Matters

Unreliable narrators are a staple of literature. Consider the delusional, self-serving narrator of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl or the way Humbert Humbert used his cultured references and gorgeous prose to dress up his crimes in Nabokov’s Lolita. Now along comes John Bolton and his account of time served in the Trump administration as national security advisor. Bolton’s latest book has...

Opinion Comments: 0

September 24, 2019

Firing Bolton: Bait and Switch or Changing Tack?

News of US National Security Adviser John Bolton’s departure was followed by hopeful commentary both within the US and abroad that so too would follow the aggressive foreign policy he advocated – particularly in regards to Iran. However, US foreign policy – including its decades-long belligerence toward Iran – is a function of powerful corporate-financier special interests dominating Wall Street...

Opinion Comments: 0

Tag: John Bolton

The Room Where It Didn’t Happen: Inside John Bolton’s Brain

How the Media Used the Bounty Scandal to Stop the ‘Threat’ of Peace in Afghanistan

John Bolton – Traitor to Common Decency

Trump Unloads on Bolton After Bolton Unloads on Trump

Bolton’s Memoir Bolts from the Stable

Chinagate Is The Craziest Conspiracy Theory Yet

Why Bolton Matters

Firing Bolton: Bait and Switch or Changing Tack?