You can’t blame the guy, can you? If I lied like Dave, I wouldn’t want to look at myself in the mirror either. Dave’s latest gaze blocker, delivered in the course of his mandatory suck-up to newly arrived enabler in chief John Bolton, runs as follows:
“Bolton’s hawkishness toward North Korea now looks prescient. He argued that Pyongyang would betray its nuclear-disarmament promises under the 1994 Agreed Framework and the 2003-2009 six-party talks.”
I’ll give Dave credit: it’s difficult to compress more nonsense and deceit than that into two sentences. Let’s begin at the beginning. When Republicans took control of Congress in 1994 they deliberately sabotaged the Agreed Framework, because, ever since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have sabotaged every international agreement Democrats make, because Democrats. Republicans didn’t want Clinton to get credit for accomplishing anything in the first place, and, in addition, Republicans believe in international tension as an end in itself. Because if there is peace the damn Democrats will win every goddamn election.
The Bush Administration naturally repudiated the Agreed Framework entirely, substituting the spectre of “Shock and Awe” à la Iraq as a means to force the North Koreans to abandon their nuclear plans unilaterally, just as Trump and now Bolton are now demanding. It was, of course, a complete failure. During the Bush Administration, North Korea manufactured its first nuclear weapons. It wasn’t negotiations that failed. It was the Republican faith in threats and bullying.
Hawks like Bolton are terrified of trust; they see it as weakness and loss of control. We can only be safe if we never trust anyone. Bolton’s obsessive suspiciousness, his contempt for weakness, his xenophobic hatred of all other nations for failing to do what the U.S. wants them to do, mesh perfectly with Donald Trump’s zero-sum bullying. It’s a marriage made in Hell, and we’re going to pay the bill. But David Ignatius don’t give a shit. Moustache or no, Dave’s gonna kiss that bride. Knock yourself out, Dave! Hope you enjoy tongue!
Afterwords
If you’ve got the stomach, look the horror that is John Bolton in the face via the all too prescient columns of Daniel Larison on M. Moustache. There’s a lot of it, and it’s all depressing.
