Bolton Meets Beckett

Or as Peter Baker, the New York Times scribe of the rich and powerful puts it, all of Washington, D.C. is anxiously Waiting for Bolton.

But bringing Samuel Beckett's Theater of the Absurd to a whole new level, this production will probably not be held in a public venue, but in the same Secure Room that all the previous impeachment playlets and teasers have been performed. 

 It goes something like this: the actors recite their lines to a small group of directors, who then impart their analyses to the news people lingering outside in the hall, and then the news people report what they only heard second-hand to
an audience waiting in vain for the real thing.

"It's not the same thing," as Vladimir bitterly complains to his friend Estragon in the Beckett classic, Waiting For Godot, before repeating the essential motif of the tragi-comic play: "Nothing to be done." 

But Baker strives nonetheless to impart to his readers a "you are there" feeling of excitement and suspense to make you feel like you're an integral part of the whole dark surrealistic spectacle:

As the House impeachment inquiry enters its second month, there may be no witness investigators want to question more than John R. Bolton, the president’s former national security adviser....

Mr. Bolton implicitly criticized Mr. Trump’s foreign policy, declaring that “despite all the friendly notes and photo ops, North Korea isn’t our friend and never will be.” But he also wrote that the nation’s security “is under attack from within,” citing “radicalized Democrats.”
The conflicting signals were maddening. After either resigning or being fired last month depending on whose version is to be believed, is Mr. Bolton so estranged from Mr. Trump that he might provide damaging testimony to House investigators? Or does he share the president’s view of out-of-control Democrats pursuing an illegitimate impeachment out of partisan excess?

Bolton threatens to become as beloved of liberals as his former boss, George W. Bush, who has been successfully rehabbed by the likes of Michelle Obama, Ellen DeGeneres, and just about the entire consolidated media hive, a/k/a Resistance, Inc. When it comes to getting rid of Donald Trump, neither the illegal invasion of Iraq, nor torture, nor Fox News neocon propaganda gigs, nor even the elevation of Bush's lawyer Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court can stand in the way of doing the moral thing to return the country to its righteous imperialistic and pluto-normative roots.

Bolton and Bush Bromance

Acknowledging this sordid truth is Rep. Tom Malinowski, Democrat of New Jersey, who dished to Baker: "What it (the opaque impeachment inquiry) says is this is not about competing Republican versus Democratic visions of American foreign policy. This is about whether our foreign policy should be made in the national interest or in the personal political interests of the president."

Translation: it's not fair to let one oafish outlier of an oligarch ruin the profitable business of war and plunder for the rest of the pathologically greedy Forbes 400 billionaires, the life-destroying oil companies, and the sociopathic weapons manufacturers.

I forgot to mention that along with the rehabilitation of George W. Bush, the rehabilitation of his prime torture architect, lawyer John Yoo, also continues apace. Not only has Yoo been granted regular self-serving op-ed space in the New York Times as a bona fide member of Resistance, Inc., he is near the top of every star national security reporter's speed dial.

Baker writes, coyly omitting any talk of torture, indefinite detention, or the antidemocratic "unitary executive" agenda espoused by Yoo and which is now so outlandishly benefiting Trump:

According to the testimony given to Congress so far, Bolton was a central figure in trying to prevent any delay in releasing foreign aid to Ukraine,” said John Yoo, a University of Berkeley law school professor and senior Justice Department official under President George W. Bush. “I cannot see how any responsible investigation would not seek Bolton’s appearance.”
But he added that the White House would presumably “go to the mat” to fight any effort to interview Mr. Bolton. “If the White House were to fight the House impeachment on executive privilege grounds, Bolton would be the hill on which to die,” Mr. Yoo said. “The Trump White House could claim not just that the impeachment investigation is illegitimate, which is its current line of defense, but that it is defending the right of future presidents to have an effective White House and to conduct a successful foreign policy.

Whenever the mainstream media want to impart the aura of legitimacy and goodness to their tainted sources, they gratuitously include their sources' elite academic bona fides and professional credentials. We are supposed to be cowed and impressed.

Continuing with that trope, Baker respectfully describes Bolton as a "Yale-trained lawyer" who "brought years of experience when Mr. Trump made him his third national security adviser in March 2018."

He "served in" the Justice Department - as opposed to subverting it and bending US law to the whims of invaders and torturers and thieves. And he is currently making money hand over fist doing his own deals with foreign governments while raising dark PAC money, both for his fellow reactionary politicians and for his own possible run for the presidency. Since Bolton is not Trump, this is totally cool, as Peter Baker gushes approvingly:

The combination of his pedigree and the possibility that he really does have incriminating information about Mr. Trump makes him a particularly appealing witness to Democrats. The prospect of one of the nation’s most visible foreign policy conservatives testifying against his former boss would, in their view, underscore the significance of Mr. Trump’s transgressions.

It's the law of the political Mob. If one boss is willing to spill the beans on another boss, he will go down in history as one of the good guys -- especially if he paves the way for a Democratic sweep in 2020. This is what hypocrites describe as "pragmatism."

So will Bolton show up to testify, or won't he? Neither he nor his lawyer (whose firm's macabre motto is "Victory Or Death") are saying. Like the original CIA "Ukrainegate" informant before him, whose identity will never be made public and who will never have to testify before Congress in open session because his testimony allegedly has been corroborated by other secret testimony, Bolton is coming uncomfortably close to being cast as an actual victim-hero in the Impeachment Follies narrative.

Baker:

 So now Mr. Bolton has been left in the middle, a key witness in the unfolding impeachment drama. His friend, Thomas M. Boyd, an assistant attorney general in the Reagan and Bush administrations, said Mr. Bolton understands his obligations to guard the confidentiality of communications with the president but will also be prepared to give his unvarnished views if it comes to it.

This sympathetic portrait of Bolton in the Times is about the same man who once threatened to kidnap and physically harm any justice from the International criminal tribunal in The Hague who dared prosecute Americans for war crimes committed in Afghanistan. This is the same man who helped orchestrate the phony casus belli for the US invasion of Iraq. This is the same man who has championed the Apartheid state of Israel and its genocidal crimes against Palestinians.

John Bolton's going from the dark side to another dark side is probably contingent upon the same factors that Beckett's Estragon and Vladimir posited for whether or not the mysterious Godot would ever show up for a reason that is never even explained.

"He couldn't promise anything... he'd have to think it over... in the quiet of his home... consult his family... his friends... his agents... his correspondents... his books... his bank account... before taking a decision... it's the normal thing... is it not?...I think it is..."

"And where do we come in? ... On our hands and knees.... As bad as that?.... We've no rights any more?.... You'd make me laugh if it wasn't prohibited."