PrairiePundit

NY Times: Seizing the Presidency to Suit His Own Needs In a new book, John R. Bolton portrays Donald Trump as a president who sees his office as an instrument to advance his own personal and political interests over those of the nation. This is the most ridiculous analysis of Trump I have seen so far.  If he sought the office for his own needs why has he not taken a salary and why has his net worth shrunk since taking office?  His policies are aimed at getting better deals for US companies and farmers.  On foreign policy, he is seeking to extricate the US from wars.  Trump obviously thinks that his policies benefit the country.

Washington Post: Trump asked China’s Xi to help him win reelection, according to Bolton book The memoir by former national security adviser John Bolton portrays an “erratic” and “stunningly uninformed” commander in chief. I find this allegation improbable at best.  The Trump administration has been knocking heads with the Chinese government from the very beginning.  Trump's response to the Coronavirus should make it clear that he does not see China as a political ally.  While a trade agreement might have some political benefits with certain sectors of the economy at best it would just mean continued support from the President's base and not particularly adding to his base. Bolten's real disagreements with the President on policy revolve around Bolten's belief in a need for continuing the Middle East wars.

Washington Post: President’s lawyers largely ignore uproar, focus attacks on Bidens The president’s team of lawyers pressed their case that he did nothing wrong in withholding aid to Ukraine but key moderate Republican senators say disclosures from John Bolton’s manuscript strengthen the case for hearing from more witnesses. The media continues to look for a distraction to cover up Biden's alleged corruption and the Democrat Deep State upchucked something that is allegedly in Bolten's book.  It is really irrelevant and demonstrates what a sloppy job Democrats did in making their case for their coup attempt.  It is a sign of the desperation of the Democrats and the media that they are pushing this story from a guy they hate.   The lawyers did address the irrelevancy of the Bolten story in their argument.  It still does not make an ordinary interaction for aid an impeachable offense even if it were true. What we are seeing is desperation from the Trump hate...

Washington Post: ‘Very serious mistake’: Erdogan scolds Bolton over demand for Kurdish fighters in Syria The comments came as the Turkish president reportedly refused to meet with White House national security adviser John Bolton. A presidential spokesman said a meeting was “never confirmed.” The mistake is Erdogan's.  His real agenda is to attack and destroy the Syrian Kurds who helped the US defeat ISIS.  He was never really interested in ISIS.  I think Erdogan did not fight ISIS because he hoped they would kill the Kurds. Erdogan is an Islamist despot with a genocidal urge when it comes to the Kurds.

Washington Times: National Security Adviser John R. Bolton said Monday the United States has dismissed the International Criminal Court as “illegitimate” and it will sanction the organization’s judges if they pursue an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by American soldiers and intelligence officials in Afghanistan. The announcement came from Mr. Bolton during a speech to the Federalist Society at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. “We will not cooperate with the ICC,” Mr. Bolton said. “We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us.” A favorite of Washington’s conservative establishment for his hawkish stance on thorny global issues, Mr. Bolton used his first major address since joining the Trump White House in April to blast what he called a “super-national independent institution” that functions with “unchecked powers” with “no che...

NY Times: Trump Picks Raise Alarm Over Ties to Anti-Islam Groups Mike Pompeo is Mr. Trump’s pick to be the next secretary of state, and John R. Bolton is the choice for national security adviser. Civil rights groups are concerned. That some people reject the head in the sand approach to dealing with radical Islam does not make them smarter or less dangerous.  In fact, it ignores the danger of radical Islamists true believers, who find support in the text of Islamic writings for their desire to kill Jews and anyone else who does not embrace their weird beliefs.  That is clearly not the same as saying all Muslims are potential mass murderers.  But it does not ignore the motivations of some to become one.

Making fun of the Democrats' attack on Bolton was an interesting icebreaker and Bolton took it with good humor.

Cal Thomas: ... Writing about Mr. Bolton’s appointment, Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick rightly stated: “For the better part of three decades, Mr. Bolton has bravely held positions that fly in the face of the establishment’s innate preference for appeasement. He was a vocal critic, for example, of then-President Bill Clinton’s disastrous nuclear diplomacy with North Korea.” Mr. Bolton was also a critic of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Some of his predictions and policy recommendations turned out to be right. Here are some pithy Bolton-isms that are clear-eyed and have the advantage of being right. About diplomatic dealings with Iran, Mr. Bolton has said: “When you have a regime that would be happier in the afterlife than in this life, this is not a regime that is subject to classic theories of deterrence.” On the strategy known as negotiation, Mr. Bolton is quoted as saying, “Negotiation is not a policy. It’s a technique. It’s something you use when it’s to y...

Michael Ledeen: Anyone who has held as many hard jobs in Washington as has John Bolton, will have made numerous enemies, whatever his personality. John has plenty of critics, and in this dramatic Bolton-for-McMaster change, there are lots of unhappy officials, not even including the McMaster loyalists at the National Security Council who are surely slated for an early exit. As the Los Angeles Times puts it succinctly in a headline, “Bolton’s not nice, but he’s good.” Actually, those of us who have known him for a long time would differ on the “not nice” bit. I think he’s very nice. I met him when we were both at the American Enterprise Institute, and truth be told I was not at all enthusiastic about his arrival there. I wasn’t a fan of Jim Baker, for whom John had worked at the State Department, and I wondered why AEI wanted a “Baker person.” But I changed my mind as I read the many articles, essays, and even books that John produced. And he was willing to debate issues on ...

David French: ... Bolton is not — as some in the media would have you believe — a mere flame-throwing Fox News “talking head.” He’s a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He’s on the board of trustees of the National Review Institute. He’s a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He’s a conservative hawk, yes, but he’s squarely in the mainstream of conservative foreign-policy thought. He’s not extreme. The reaction against him, however, is. Moreover, the reaction betrays a sad reality: The foreign-policy Left still hasn’t learned the lessons of the recent past. To put it simply, all too many people view the challenge of North Korea and Iran something like this: There is a clearly safer path, including engagement, talks, and continued fidelity to the Iran deal; and there is a clearly more dangerous path — saber-rattling, increased sanctions, public advocacy for regime change. All right-thinking people should seek more engagement with North Korea. All right-t...

Conrad Black: No one following the Russian-collusion and related dramas should be in any doubt about the steady flow of the balance of damaging evidence away from Trump and on to his accusers. It is clear that the hierarchy of the FBI and analogues in the Justice Department and intelligence services, horrified at the thought of a Trump victory though confident it would not occur, took liberties — in the soft treatment of Hillary Clinton’s email and uranium problems, and in abetting the Clinton campaign’s effort to smear Trump with the Russian-collusion argument. As the parallel investigations and diluvian leaking have unfolded, the anti-Trump Resistance has received a series of gradually suppurating mortal wounds. The Steele dossier was commissioned and paid for by the Clinton campaign; over a hundred FBI agents and Justice Department lawyers expected Hillary Clinton to be charged criminally, and President Trump was correct in saying conversations by his campaign officials had been...