The Confessions of John Bolton It’s quaint, we know, but whatever happened to honor in public service?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-confessions-of-john-bolton-11592522040?mod=opinion_lead_pos3
On the matter of John Bolton’s book, it’s hard to tell who looks worse: the former national security adviser for writing it while President Trump is still in office, his lifelong political opponents who now hail Mr. Bolton as a truth teller, or the President of the United States as depicted in the book.
Mr. Bolton has been a frequent Journal contributor across his long public life, and he’s a defender of American interests. We have gone to the barricades on his behalf more than a few times. His account of Mr. Trump’s private words and actions sounds right because the President often says similar things in public. As far as we know, Mr. Bolton has never lied to us.
Yet we also have to wonder what happened to honor in public service. Presidents should have some expectation that their advisers will wait until they kiss and tell, especially about their private conversations with foreign leaders. It used to be that advisers wouldn’t write about the Presidents they served until they had left office.
These days too many advisers bid for fame the minute they leave the White House, and Mr. Bolton has managed to do so in the middle of a re-election campaign. Mr. Trump didn’t treat him well, but the President treats few people well beyond his immediate family. Mr. Bolton certainly knew what to expect when he accepted the job.
Even if his motivation in publishing his book now is to block Mr. Trump’s re-election, there’s no reason for Mr. Bolton to disclose private comments by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. All he’s doing is undermining Mr. Pompeo’s ability to influence Mr. Trump away from bad policy mistakes. Mr. Bolton’s book is a blot on his distinguished career, and the contents will not help his country no matter who wins the November election.
Even worse are the Democrats and media who now hail Mr. Bolton’s book as holy writ after spending decades fighting everything he stands for. Joe Biden was among the Senate Democrats who filibustered Mr. Bolton’s nomination to be U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in 2005 for no reason but partisan spite. Yet on Wednesday Mr. Biden issued a statement endorsing Mr. Bolton’s version of events without caveat.
As for Mr. Trump, the book’s excerpts carry no real surprises. The details are depressing against the standards one expects from a President. But voters know Mr. Trump has little tact, is untutored in foreign affairs, operates on personal instincts more than any guiding principles, and looks at nearly everything almost entirely through the prism of what is good for him.
Mr. Trump is hardly unique in gearing policy to his re-election. Recall Barack Obama’s “the tide of war is receding” in 2012 even as Islamic State mobilized. But it is still cringe-worthy to learn that Mr. Trump wrote his defense of U.S.-Saudi ties after Jamal Khashoggi’s murder to deflect from his daughter Ivanka’s troubles. And it’s revolting if Mr. Bolton is right that Mr. Trump gave Xi Jinping a moral blank check to hold a million Uighurs in concentration camps.
Voters can add all this to everything else they’ve learned in three and a half years as they decide whether to give Mr. Trump four more in the Oval Office. His character flaws and their considerable risks for a second term will be measured against Mr. Biden’s ebbing vigor and his increasing deference to the Democratic Party’s Jacobin left. As Winston Churchill said, democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.
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