The Optimistic Mr. Bolton
David Weigel | November 13, 2007, 11:14am
I just got out of a roundtable with former UN Ambassador John Bolton sponsored by
The American Spectator and Americans for Tax Reform. A few things that came up...
- I asked Bolton to assess our response to Pakistan's crisis and whether supporting Musharaff was at odds with our stated goal of promoting democracy. "You've got a situation where America's interests and values are not congruent," Bolton said. "What's our strategic priority? It's ensuring that the nuclear weapons in Pakistan's arsenal don't fall into the wrong hands. Unhappily, in the near term, we have to rely on Musharraf." And he rejected the idea that we were necessarily undermining "democracy" by backing Musharraf, because Benazir Bhutto has a bit of the thug in her: "You know what her title is? Chairperson for life. This is not a conflict between democracy, on the one hand, with a bunch of people in white hats, and martial law, on the other hand, with a bunch of people in black hats."
- Grover Norquist asked (twice) to find "a diamond in the coal": the greatest legacy of the Bush administration. Bolton, answered, twice, that this was the Proliferation Security Initiative. Paul Mirengoff of Powerline pointed out that he didn't mention Iraq. Bolton said removing Saddam Hussein was a "strategic victory" but "where we went wrong was in the phase after... we would have been better off to turn affairs over to Iraqis much more quickly, not to have become an occupying power, not to become part of the problem. You don't enhance people's political maturation by making their decisions for them."
Bolton expanded on that thought: "The evidence is now clear that Republican administrations are no better at nation-building than Democratic administrations, which tells me that we're no good at nation-building. We should focus on building our own nation." I think he's said this before, but it was striking in a roundtable where he was arguing that we could bomb Iran's nuclear sites and eventually overthrow the regime. So I asked him on the way out: What did we learn from our nation-building adventure in Iraq that could inform what we do in Iran? If we attack, "we need to make it clear that is not aimed at the people in Iran, but aimed at the Mullahs." I pointed out that this is what we said we were doing when we took out Saddam:
"Your enemy is not surrounding your country, your enemy is ruling your country." It didn't make the occupation any easier. "The problem with Iraq is that we stayed and we stayed too long."
james | November 13, 2007, 4:03pm | #
Some funny libertarian neologisms and descriptions from Wilton Alston and contributors at LRC. There are more at LRC. I thought they were hilarious and wanted to share them pass them on to your friends.
Unhaling: Smoking something without actually, you know, smoking it, e.g., "Clinton is famous for unhaling during his supposed only attempts to spark up the chronic."
Greenback Emissions: Slang for the smell rising off the cash people make from the anthropogenic global warming scam, e.g., "As chairman of Generation Investment Management, Al Gore’s financial holdings are starting to give off some substantial greenback emissions!"
Terraphobiosity: The practice of using the threat of terrorist attacks to keep the sheeple in line, e.g., "Politicians have long been practitioners of terraphobiosity, but this President takes it to high art."
Smirkism: One of the banal justifications President Bush gives either before or after one of his (patented) smirks, e.g., "We have to fight them over there, so we don’t have to fight them here." (The smirkism is the sentence in-between!)
Chenie (noun): The mythical figure that pops out when a neocon rubs a magic lamp.
Chenius (noun): One whose dumb ideas are consistently hailed as brilliant.
Christafarian (noun): A social conservative so detached from reality due to his myopic religious fundamentalism, that one is convinced he's been smoking something.
Evangungelist (noun): A person who thinks Jehovah is Hebrew for United States Armed Forces.
FEMAnist (noun): A person who believes all natural dangers, social ills, and economic problems can be prevented, cured or resolved by the promises of the government and its agencies.
Ignoronus (noun): A pollster, talking head or radio personality who deliberately omits Ron Paul from any political discourse or dismisses Mr. Paul's candidacy altogether, e.g., "Stevie Wonder could see that Hannity is a real ignoronus."
Imminent Tomain (noun): The reality that with governmental organizations looking after one’s health and welfare it’s only a matter of time until you become sick or poisoned due to their incompetence.
Incompetense (noun): The stress felt as one waits for the government’s next boneheaded move.
Neoconsensus (noun): Unity generated by a bogus cry against terror, under a blanket of state-sponsored security, e.g., "The phrase, ‘If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists!’ is intended to drive neoconsensus."
Proctician (noun): A cross between a proctologist and politician. Acts obsessively to snoop, sift, and sniff into every nook, cranny and orifice of private citizens. Believes every action and transaction should be subject to taxation and regulation. Feels property may be owned by individuals, given proper permits and other statist whatnottery, but also believes government should dictate how the property may be used.
Properganda (noun): Information, typically gathered by simply reading press releases, that has been approved for wide distribution to the US public by the mainstream media.
Rudycule (verb): The use of a derisive remark, intended to cause contemptuous laughter towards anyone suggesting that US foreign intervention and militarism abroad may cause blowback.
Subcity (noun): An urban hell created by a misguided application of government funds, e.g., "The best way to create a subcity is to pay people for personally negligent behavior."
Someone Who Doesn't Want to Lose His Job | November 13, 2007, 10:44pm | #
TWC: No problem, dude.
Like I said, I didn't like Clinton at all at the time, but once they started doing the skits on Conan O'Brien I actually warmed up to him (at least the fictional version) a little, and the whole blowjob prosecution wore thin on me pretty quick too. I still don't think much of him as a human being or a political figure, though.
Bush II pissed me off from the get go; his election struck me as too much monarchy and the man himself as too dim. I kind of want every president to be Jefferson, so I know I'm aiming too high, but still... I was one of the Iraq War II viewers who traveled on the following progression:
Very Opposed (I pissed off some very pro-war friends a
lot in those days.)
Uncertain (Purple thumbs, right, what else? I still thought most of the justification was hogwash, but I thought maybe some good might come out of it.)
Opposed (Regardless of how things are there now, not
enough good has come out of it to be worth staying there.)
I was a big reader of Instapundit and watcher of Daily Show during the purple thumb days. I was happy to see those elections, and probably too naive about what it meant, considering how things have gone since then.
Instapundit has gotten to be too predictable to read these days; it's almost as bad as watching Sean Hannity.
I was pretty much OK with Afghanistan at the time too.
