This is the second time that Boot has lashed out at The Point in the pages of the Washington Post. If this goes on, his Washington Post columns will soon consist of whining about the mean things that conservatives say about him. This time around, the issue was Boot's attacks on John Bolton. Max Boot had formerly praised Bolton. Now he had switched to dismissing him as a talking head.
Google enables a never-ending game of “Gotcha!” The Internet search engine makes it easy to find past writings that seemingly contradict more recent ones. Case in point: My Post column critiquing newly appointed national security adviser John Bolton for ideological extremism and poor managerial skills. Trump’s fans predictably dredged up a 2005 Los Angeles Times op-ed I had written supporting Bolton’s nomination for United Nations ambassador. Ben Boychuk, managing editor of the website American Greatness, tweeted: “Gee, I wonder what changed.” James Taranto, the Wall Street Journal op-ed editor, wrote: “I mean, c’mon dude.” With its trademark subtlety, the pro-Trump FrontPage Magazine hyperventilated: “Max Boot’s slimy smear of Bolton shows his hypocrisy.”
So if one’s views change over the course of 13 years, that’s evidence of “hypocrisy”?
Except that there's no reason to think that Boot's views changed over the course of 13 years. Tellingly, the column was retweeted by Jennifer Rubin, whose own flip flopping on Bolton (not to mention Iran) took place in a matter of years.
Yet here is Rubin, recommending Bolton for a high-ranking position in December 2016: “Former ambassador John Bolton, who met yesterday with Vice President-elect Mike Pence and is set to meet with Trump tomorrow, had an insightful take on the task ahead in that regard. On ‘Fox and Friends,’ he argued for the need for a ‘cultural revolution’ at the State Department, making certain that a department of 70,000 follows the president’s wishes and not the other way around. There are few experienced hands who know how the State Department works today and have a granular understanding as to how it should function. If not Bolton himself, someone very much like him would be ideal in the No. 2 spot at State.”
Why was she particularly keen on Bolton getting this job? Because it would put him in line to become Trump’s national security advisor!
Boot provides no evidence that his own position changed because of anything other than Trump. Instead he argues against Bolton because of Trump.
Quite a few facts have changed since 2005. Back then, Bolton was being nominated for a post in which he was supposed to echo the president’s views. And that president — George W. Bush — was a traditional conservative who believed that the United States needs to promote free trade and freedom more broadly... But today Bolton isn’t being sent to Turtle Bay. He is going to the West Wing, where he will be one of the most important influences on a president who is so ignorant that he makes Bush seem like an international relations PhD by comparison
Two things.
1. Note the backhanded little sneer at Bush's intelligence. It's a good fit for Boot's new lefty pals. But when did he decide that Bush was ignorant? Can we get a timeline on that?
2. Bolton was qualified to work for Bush, not Trump. So the issue is Trump, not Bolton. That's the consistent pattern in the Rubin/Boot inconsistency.
"Like Bolton, I was a proponent of the Iraq War, but unlike him, I have concluded it was a bad idea... As I wrote in 2013, “I would not have backed the invasion if I had known what we now know — that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction.” ...The failure of the Iraq intervention has soured me on preventative wars in general. Not so Bolton: He remains an advocate of bombing Iran and North Korea. Anyone who favors a “war of choice” against a nuclear-armed state belongs in a psychiatric ward, not the White House..."
If you're still following this...
1. Max Boot only supported the Iraq War because he thought Saddam Hussein had WMDs
2. Anyone who supports a war against a country armed with WMDs belongs in a psychiatric ward
By his own admission, Boot belongs in a psychiatric ward. His entire argument for why he opposes Bolton hinges on an excuse that he deems disqualifying. If Saddam Hussein had WMDs, Boot's support for the war should put him in a psych ward.
But you can't ask for too much consistency from a guy whose only logic is, "If Trump's for it, I'm against it." But Trump was against the Iraq War while Bush was for it. So shouldn't Boot prefer Trump to Bush?
Anyway, what kind of maniac would support military action against Iran and North Korea? Here's a blast from Boot's past.
The question now is how to deal with other tyrannical regimes that are acquiring weapons of mass destruction like Iran and North Korea. Once again we face the familiar options — negotiation or pre-emption. I would argue for pre-emption but pre-emption broadly defined to mean not just military options but all sorts of pressure — diplomatic, economic and moral — to change the nature of these regimes... So I think our focus should be on helping the people of North Korea, the people of Iran and of other rogue regimes to overthrow their tyrants and install more accountable regimes.
"Not just military".
If we ever really needed a demonstration that these people yammer about principles, but run on nothing but careerism, class signals and emotion, there it is. They don't think. They signal.
Bolton has also become notorious for bashing the European Union and Islam.
Not the EU and Islam?
He has been chairman since 2013 of the Gatestone Institute, an Islamophobic think tank that has propagated the myth that parts of Europe and North America are “no-go zones” for non-Muslims.
How dare he agree with Angela Merkel?
“It means for example that there cannot be any no-go areas, that there cannot be areas where no-one dares to go but there are such places,” she said. “One has to call them by name and do something about it.”
It's okay. Everyone has the right to change their minds, deny reality, acknowledge reality, and whine about it.