In Praise of John Bolton

(I Never Thought I'd Say That)

I don't remember which demonstration this was.

One fine day not too long ago (probably a Tuesday, possibly in 2018), I was riding the Chestnut Street bus in Philadelphia. A couple was sitting across the aisle, chatting. After a bit, the man, on the aisle, turned to me and said, "By the way, has anyone ever told you that you look like John Bolton?"

The Chestnut Street bus, midday, not too crowded, can be a convivial place, and the man seemed friendly. I said, "Yes, actually."

It's true. We have a passing resemblance, based largely I think on the glasses and the mustache. When Mr. Bolton is in the news, I have received an occasional query.

I don't like John Bolton. There are so many reasons, but the one that sticks in my mind is the story of an irate Bolton chasing a woman down a hotel corridor in Moscow in 1994, yelling at her angrily, and then pounding on her hotel room door as he shouted insults.

Here is the curse of being old. I do remember. And here is the strength of democracy - I can link you to a story. It hasn't been erased. (Click here. Actually, here's another.)

Still, I do look a bit like John Bolton. It's a reminder of our common humanity.

And now he's acting like a patriot, telling the truth about Donald Trump and the quid pro quo in Ukraine. It doesn't change the past, but it does change the present.

There's a slightly inapropos quote from the old movie Casablanca. At the end Claude Rains says to Humphrey Bogart, who has just put Ingrid Bergman on the Lisbon plane with Paul Henreid and then shot a late-arriving Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt), "Well, Rick, you're not only a sentimentalist, but you've become a patriot."

I don't think Bolton is a sentimentalist, and I don't think Ingrid Bergman would have had much interest in him. But it's just possible that he is a patriot.

And here's one more thing. Perhaps, after all this time, and so much prevarication, dissimulation, and outright bluster, Bolton may have come to the conclusion that facts matter.

See also Bannon and Co. Aren't Very Good at Being Evil, Fascism, Jim Crow Was a Failed State.